Burning the Black Company

[Kevin]

So I picked up a copy of Green Ronin's Black Company Campaign Setting (disclaimer: I've co-authored three books for them, although this isn't one of them) and I like it a lot. I also noticed that it'd be a pretty good setting for a BW game.

The BW magic system already seems very close to the way magic works in the books and the game, particularly if you use the Abstractions system from the downloads area. BW combat is already deadly enough for the BC setting, so there's no need to really tweak that. (The Dominator and the Taken can be handled easily enough with Grey stats and skills, although you'd have to invent protective spells for them rather than just giving them piles of hit points).

If you're a fan of the novels, I recommend the game book, with the warning that it's mostly d20 rules crunch designed to turn it into a grim and gritty fantasy ruleset. The setting material doesn't go beyond what's in the books, although it's helpful to have it in one place. If you haven't read the novels, you really should.

BW could use a mass combat system for a BC campaign, but then I understand from other posts that an unreleased one exists. I hope it'll turn up in the Annual/Revision shortly...

[Mechavomit]

A couple of friends and myself have been doing a Black Company inspired game--we use TRoS. I think TRoS's magic system fits a bit more with the "you can do anything if you put the time into it" magic of Cook's world. Plus, and this is just personal opinion, without lifepaths you get much closer to the completely mysterious quality of all the characters' pasts in the novels. I'd say with actual Company characters you almost need to not know the specifics of where they came from and how they got where they are. Croaker talks in depth about just that subject repeatedly in the title novel of the series.* To me that's one of the most important philosophical aspects of the books to address--but, again, that's just to me.

This is one of those few times I pick TRoS over BW for doing a non-canon setting. Usually it's either/or, decided by a coin toss, or BW.

*Yes I am a huge Glen Cook nerd in general, and a Black Company nerd in specific.

[Kevin]

Yeah, I looked at TROS as well. The biggest problem I had with it (for simulating the Black Company novels) is that the magic system in TROS has problematic spells lead to rapid aging in wizards and there's nothing in the novels to suggest anything of the sort is true. In fact, it's quite the opposite--wizards appear to have an unnaturally extended lifespan.

An alternate magic system would fix this problem but that would involve work. Plus which, I know BW better than TROS.

[Thor Olavsrud]

I think you can do a great Black Company game with BW. Giving the Taken Gray Will and Gray Sorcery would probably do the trick and give them the oomph they need to pull off full Abstractions (though I'd burn up some of the spells that they use over and over -- Shapeshifter's transformations or Stormbringer's storm creation -- to give them an edge in those areas. I'd also always make sure they cast patiently and carefully when using Abstractions.

I would mostly just give spells to witch doctors like One-Eye, Goblin, and Silent. First among them, of course, would be Phantasmagoria. However, the Obstacles in Phantasmagoria are a little wacky. A little imp told me that Luke plans to revisit the spell in the revision. Until then you might use the obstacles that I used in this thread (http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=820) for The Ebon Bed of Morpheus. Don't pay attention to the casting Ob, just the Obs for creating various types of illusion.

Anyway, you might give the three a couple of Facets to play with, but they should probably stay away from Abstractions unless they're desperate. The Obs are just too high.

However, there is ample precedent in the books for allowing them to work together for certain big spells, so you should definitely allow them to use Helping Dice to pull off certain things.

[Kevin]

That seems largely in keeping with the novels to me. The Taken are mixed Grey/Black; someone like the Dominator might even have White-shaded stats. What makes the Taken so dangerous is the layers of magical protection they have around them at all times.

As for One-Eye and Goblin, they seem to be able to create new spells given lots of time, so the Abstraction rules would work there.

The magic system was the main reason I felt more confortable thinking of the BC in BW terms. I think BW magic will work for most of the stuff in the novels without much modification. There's not a lot of instances of stuff going wrong (I don't recall spells ever having unexpected results) but you could always state that the casters we see are just very careful.

The lifepath thing doesn't bother me much on second thought--those kind of broad outlines are usually what we do know about the characters in the BC.

[luke]

don't forget to give powerful NPC mages a host of matrices (http://www.burningwheel.org/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=14&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0)

And, if the source material you're emulating has different magical precedents, by all means change the game as needed!

Eliminate the Unwanted Summoning and Garbled Transmission results. Won't break the game, just less fun. :twisted:

And experiment with giving your spell-casters a mixture of spells and facets. A few core spells combined with facets like Single Target, Natural Effect, Elapsed Time (minutes), etc. allows players to get a lot of mileage out of their spellcraft without risking the destruction of the world.

-L

[Thor Olavsrud]

And experiment with giving your spell-casters a mixture of spells and facets. A few core spells combined with facets like Single Target, Natural Effect, Elapsed Time (minutes), etc. allows players to get a lot of mileage out of their spellcraft without risking the destruction of the world.

-L

Yep. That's my recommendation as well. Otherwise, sorcerers with Black Will and Black Sorcery are likely to blow themselves up casting full Abstractions. And sooner rather than later. The Obstacles on Abstractions rachet up really quickly.

[Mechavomit]

All we did was drop the aging and replace it with, basically, "detection". The worse you do, the more obvious you are to other wizards, which is the primary concern of the Company's minor wizards. This keeps the spells small and in the spirit of the novels.

But uh... this is a BW board. So! I think yes, abstractions could work very well for the free and loose sort of magic that's done in Cook's world, where very little seems to be formulated at all. The magic of BW was never much of a problem (you can switch the terminology and whatever to match the atmosphere). Also: I like the symmetry of Black Company and black shade attributes.

[luke]

But uh... this is a BW board.

It's ok. You can talk about other games, too. Compare and contrast, right?

;)
-L

[Kevin]

"Detection" only works in the White Rose period of the stories, when the Taken are flitting about and a real concern for the Company (IMHO and all that).

I'm currently re-reading the first three books (about halfway through the White Rose) and so far it seems that spell failure means that the spell just doesn't work.

I think combining spells and Abstractions would work quite well at simulating the stuff One-Eye and Goblin do. They seem to have certain spells they use faithfully, can make a certain amount of spells up on the fly, and have to spend a long time to do something really major.

The books seem to imply that the advantage of the more powerful wizards is both that they can do stuff faster and that they can do some extra stuff. I can't remember if Lady ever gives much detail about the working of magic in the Books of the South; other than that none of the Annalists have much of a clue about it's workings, so almost any terminology is fine.

Other than magic, I could see BW and TROS working about equally well for a Black Company game as both support an appropriate style of play.

[donbaloo]

Thread joined from here (http://burningwheel.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1453)....

Powerful Wizards (not quite Taken, perhaps; I think that Taken would either be a very special LP or, possibly better, designed using Monster Burner) can be built just by picking an overly large number of LPs, possibly allowing the character (NPC?) to take the same lifepath (specifically the Sorcerer or something else appropriate) multiple times without penalty. And any decent Wizard (Goblin or One-Eye, for instance) should have some sort of age-defying magic... {Side note: I've seen references to "taking" Facets, but I can't find it in my rules... Something like that would definitely appropriate.}

I like the idea of making the Taken a special Lifepath. There was definately some sort of ritual involved so making it something that could be duplicated through generic lifepaths doesn't seem to really jive. Facets must be discussed in more detail in the sections of the Magic Burner that is currently being worked on. Folks above mention using Abstractions, and that's a section from the Magic Burner. You can download a couple of those from the downloads section of the site. Here's the link (http://www.burningwheel.org/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=viewdownload&cid=5) for quick access.

[kaomera]

OK, I found the Magic Burner chapters, thanx. Haven't had time to completely read through them, but I have some concepts (mostly from my previous attempt to design a system for this based on RuneQuest and/or GURPS...) that I'd like to put out here and see what floats...

First of all, Taken could be a lifepath, or a Trait... The actual act of Taking does not take the years that a LP normally would, but this could include time afterwards coming to grip with your new power, etc. I am still trying to decide how much of what the Taken do is because they are Taken, and how much is just because they are badass Wizards with centuries of experience... It almost seems like being Taken just changes one of your Beliefs and/or Instincts to "I cannot resist the Will of the one who Took me." or "If my Master (or Mistress) demands, I will not resist." or something... Plus a big ol' Reputation, of course.

All Wizards seem to have at least some resistance to aging; I think probably Vigor of Youth would be appropriate. Also, the most powerful Wizards don't seem to be killable in a conventional sense. However, it seems like an absolute rule that they are inconvenienced. It seems like either the Limper and/or Soulcatcher ought to have been able to remake their bodies by magic (or at least that's how it seems to me). This, along with the whole True Names thing, seems to me to posit a basic rule of magic that: "There's always a consequence.", which seems to fit in well with the feel of the books.

To go off on a tangent for a second: Dejagore. I am interested in having something like the siege at Dejagore in the background of my game, and I thought it was appropriate to make it a lifepath; the problem is, at best it would only be 1 year and I want the effects to be very personal to each character... Wait... I just realized I can just make "Survived the Siege" a trait. Nice. As an explanation, I want to see how the players handle this: some of them have been through a horrible ordeal that has drastically reshaped their lives; do they become a kind of "Old Crew" clique, unable to ever fully connect with those who don't share their experience; or do they try to grow beyond their experiences and make new connections?

Back to the magic / Taken: I had some basic "rules of magic" sketched out (not completely sure how all of these will fit in the BW system, but I'm hoping someone else will step in and help with that... :P )

* core rule: A Sacrifice is a Sacrifice. If you give up something for (or as a consequence of, even tangentially) your magic, it's gone. You cannot just magic it right back.

* You Sacrifice character, not stats. Base RQ mechanic is that you sacrifice characteristic points for, well, a lot of different things... This gives a very mechanical feel, I want a metaphysical feel... {I was thinking of having “taint” create new (negative) BITs, but that just doesn't work, I like my idea below much better.}

* Spells don't just fail. In my remembrance of the books (and it has been a while...), I do not recall spells just not working when there wasn't an outside influence. They don't even really go wrong... However, using magic is not without peril. Partly based on ideas from the d20 sourcebook, I came up with the idea that success on a roll to cast a spell == you avoid "taint", the negative effects of using magic. On a failure (or worse) you do get “taint”, and only on a "fumble" will your spell go awry or fail.

* BW idea: “Taint” is an emotional attribute, it magnifies your BITs. Get enough “taint” and you have these emotional King Kongs stomping around in your psyche and you end up like any of the less well-adjusted Taken.

* You can do nearly anything with magic, but everyone has their specialties, and it's easier if you have the time to prepare. One, coming up with a new spell should be plausible in-game; secondly, allow good roleplaying of "sympathetic magic" and such as Advantages.

Sound any good?