Free League publishes not one, not two, but three different fantasy roleplaying games at the moment – Forbidden Lands, Symbaroum, and now Dragonbane. Each one is quite distinct from one another, not just in terms of rules but also in tone. For example, Dragonbane, the latest iteration of the venerable Swedish RPG, Drakar och Demoner, sets itself apart from the other Free League fantasy RPGs by its willingness to embrace lighter, even sillier moments, as designer Tomas Häremstam points out in his preface:
Though a toolbox for allowing you to tell fantasy stories of all kinds, Dragonbane is a game with room for laughs at the table and even a pinch of silliness at times – while at the same time offering brutal challenges for the adventurers. We call this playstyle mirth and mayhem roleplaying – great for long campaigns but also perfect for a one-shot if you just want to have some quick fun at your table for the night.
Dragonbane is quite an interesting RPG for a number of reasons and I hope to get around to discussing it at some point, but there are several other games and gaming products ahead of it in my review queue. However, the "mirth and mayhem" tagline really caught my attention, in part because it reminds of a phrase my friends and I have used for years – high adventure and low comedy.
I can't quite recall precisely when we coined this phrase, but we did so as a way to capture what the experience of playing most RPGs was actually like at the table – not what its designers wanted to be like, which is quite a different thing. This is an important distinction. With a handful of exceptions, like Paranoiaor Toon, whose stated intention is to be humorous, most roleplaying games are written and meant to be played seriously. "Serious" doesn't mean utter devoid of humor, of course, but the humor is accidental, a natural consequence of the unpredictability of playing any game, especially one where player choice and dice rolls contend with one another.
What my friends and I call "high adventure and low comedy" is thus very often (though not exclusively) the result of exactly this: dice with a mind of their own. One of my most popular posts touches on this very topic, though from a slightly different angle. However, the point remains the same, namely, that it's well nigh impossible to avoid moments of unexpected levity when so many of a character's actions are determined by the roll of dice. There's simply no way to ensure that even a high-level and competent character will always succeed at the right moment. Instead of making his save against dragon breath, he might fail and be burnt to a crisp. The reverse is also possible and the all-powerful Dark Lord might, metaphorically speaking, slip on a banana peel as he attempts to menace the heroes who've dared to confront him in his lair.
Over the years, I've experienced many examples of this. In my House of WormsEmpire of the Petal Throne campaign, the character Aíthfo hiZnáyu has fallen prey to bad dice rolls on several notable occasions. And while I used those unintended mishaps as an opportunity to introduce new elements to the campaign, there's no denying that they were also funny – so much so that the players continue to chuckle about them years later. House of Worms has never been a deliberately funny campaign. Tékumel, with its detailed history, ancient mysteries, and constructed languages is perhaps the very definition of serious business when it comes to RPGs and yet there's no way to prevent unexpected silliness from creeping in from time to time – nor would we want to do so!
Dice rolls that go awry aren't the only source of humor. Players are every bit as unpredictable as dice. Sometimes, a player might just be in a whimsical mood and decide that his character does something goofy. Other times, he might be bored and want to shake things up by choosing to act in a way that's, in his opinion, more entertaining. Or maybe someone misspeaks, calling a character by the wrong name or accidentally – or, worse, intentionally – making a pun that causes everyone to erupt into laughter. There are simply so many ways that a roleplaying game session can descend into unintentional humor that there's no point in worrying about it. Instead, it's best to embrace it these moments of levity and enjoy them for what they are.
I think that's why, when I came across the passage I quoted above, I was so taken by it. Over the years, I've read a lot of roleplaying games. Very few of them acknowledge that low comedy is very often the inescapable companion of high adventure. You can't really have one without the other, not without clamping down so hard on anything that deviates in even the slightest way from the Truth Path that, in the process, you've also sucked all the fun out of roleplaying. These are games, after all and they're meant to be fun. They're also exercises in human creativity and interaction, both of which often take us to unexpected places.
Isn't that why we play these games in the first place?
I've been playing in a weekly Forbidden Landscampaign for a year and a half now and enjoying it immensely. Forbidden Lands, for those unfamiliar with it, is a fantasy RPG published by Free League. Set in the eponymous Forbidden Lands, a region until recently covered by the noxious Blood Mist, game play centers around exploration and survival. Forbidden Lands is often described as a "hexcrawl" or "sandbox" game and I think those are fair descriptions that comport with my own experiences playing the game. Each Forbidden Lands campaign is unique, since the setting's hex map includes only a few established landmarks, with the bulk of its "adventure sites" created by the referee, in whole or in part, through the use of extensive random generation tables.
In principle, the set-up of Forbidden Lands is relatively low prep, since the random tables provide the referee with plenty of inspiration in the creation of all the settlements, fortresses, and dungeons scattered across the Forbidden Lands. In practice, though, the game can't always be run on the fly, which opens up a space for published adventure sites that the referee can use directly or in part. Crypt of the Mellified Mage is a 80-page hardcover book that offers up four different adventure sites, each one written by a different author.
The first of the four sites, and my personal favorite, is the titular "Crypt of the Mellified Mage." Written by Fiona Maeve Geist, the site is the burial place of the sorcerer Pagoag, who sought eternal life by steeping his dead body in specially prepared honey. The crypt is filled with bees and other insects, weird undead, and the sickly sweetness of honey, which gives the whole site a creepy, sticky feel that I found oddly compelling. At the very least, it's quite unlike your run of the mill evil wizard's tomb and its contents, including Pagoag himself, have the potential to have longlasting effects on the campaign, which I applaud.
The second site is the "Firing Pit of Llao-Yutuy," written by David McGrogan. The pits are a collection of caves that supposedly house a mysterious pottery maker – Llao-Yutuy – and his servants. The pottery he makes is magical, some of which have remarkable qualities. It's a diverting adventure site but smaller and less far-reaching in its consequences. "Temple of the Six-Limbed Lord" is written by Zedeck Siew. The Temple is an invader from another reality, filled with mischievous, sometimes malevolent monkeys, as well as the monstrous Six-Limbed Lord and his priestly minions. Like "Crypt of the Mellified Mage," the Temple has great potential to affect a campaign, not least because the chief priest of the Six-Limbed Lord wants nothing more than his master to be the only god worshiped in the Forbidden Lands and is prepared to do what must be done to achieve that goal.
The fourth and final site is "The Dream-Cloud of E'lok Thir," written by Adam Koebel. The Dream-Cloud is a dungeon created from the memories, regrets, and pains of the wizard E'lok Thir. For that reason, there is no map or key to the place. Instead, the referee generates the site through the use of tables, some of whose entries are keyed to locations that represent important moments in the wizard's life. It's an unusual approach to presenting an adventuring site and, without having used it in play, I can't say whether it works as well as intended, but I hope it does, because I love the idea of it – a memory palace indeed!
Taken as a whole, Crypt of the Mellified Mage is a solid collection of unusual adventure sites for use with Forbidden Lands, though I think one could, with a little work, use them with other fantasy RPGs. The unusual nature of the four sites is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, variety is to be welcomed, particularly in a hexcrawl campaign; avoiding sameness is important to maintaining its vitality. On the other hand, the peculiar nature of these sites might be off-putting to some players and referees, which could limit their utility. Likewise, both the Firing Pit of Llao-Yutuy and the Temple of the Six-Limbed Lord contain cultural and esthetic elements that jar a bit with the implied, vaguely northern European setting of Forbidden Lands, which might also limit their utility. "Temple of the Six-Limbed Lord" directly addresses this to its credit, but I nevertheless feel that its southeast Asian flavor might prove an impediment in some campaigns. Regardless, Crypt of the Mellified Mage is a an imaginative, useful addition to Forbidden Lands that many referees will find worthwhile.
The other day, I received PDF copies of the alpha version of Free League's upcoming new edition of GDW's classic military roleplaying game, Twilight: 2000. I was very pleased to see these, first because I was a fan of the original game and, second, because Free League makes excellent RPGs. If anyone could produce a new edition of T: 2000 worthy of the original, it's them.
I've only had a chance to scan the PDFs briefly. From what I've seen, though, it looks very good. One of the things I liked about the original was its emphasis on the details of survival – keeping track of food, water, fuel, and ammunition, as well as avoiding disease and radiation. That, combined with its attention to the dangers of overland travel, make it potentially one of the great hexcrawl RPGs of all time. Free League has a great deal of experience with this style of game, which is why I'm not at all surprised that they're producing the new edition.
The new edition embraces an alternate history angle, as the game's tagline – "Roleplaying in a World War III that Never Was" makes clear – and that's the right approach, I think. At the time Twilight: 2000 was released in 1984, a limited nuclear war in 1995 didn't seem all that implausible a scenario. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, though, that future seemed less likely and GDW, rather than embracing the possibilities of an alternate history, retooled the background of the war to keep it current. Ultimately, this undermined the game and, I suspect, contributed to its demise (the awfulness of the second edition's rules, which were more "action movie" oriented than the sober, grounded ones of first edition probably didn't help). With the benefit of thirty years of hindsight, an alternate history makes so much sense and, oddly, I think it makes the setting easier to embrace wholeheartedly.
A few years ago, I did a re-read of many of the original Twilight: 2000 adventures. What struck me is how hopeful many of them seemed. Despite its reputation in some circles as the ultimate murder hobo game, Twilight: 2000 was nothing of the sort. Nearly all of the adventures involved the player characters working to shore up civilization and rebuild some semblance of normalcy in the face of the chaotic aftermath of the Third World War. Far from being just heavily armed marauders, the adventures assumed the characters were interested in using their military skills to help pick up the pieces of the shattered world. In a weird way, I rather think that, rather than being depressing, Twilight: 2000's alternate history might seem comforting in 2020 – a much needed reminder of humanity's resilience and capacity for learning from its mistakes, even ones as grave a nuclear war.
In any case, I'm looking forward to the final release of the new edition, sometime early next year. Some of my friends have already asked that I start up a campaign and I'm very likely to do so. If that happens, you can be sure there will be posts discussing our experiences.
One of the most interesting fantasy roleplaying games to have been released in the last few years is Forbidden Lands, published in English by the Swedish company, Free League. Described as a "sandbox survival roleplaying game" about "raiders and rogues bent on making [their] mark on a cursed world," it's a terrific take on hexcrawl fantasy of the sort championed by the Old School Renaissance. I've been playing in a Forbidden Lands campaign for the last year and have enjoyed it greatly, in large part because of its compelling setting. That setting was created by fantasy novelist Erik Granström, who graciously agreed to answer the following questions.
1. How did you first become involved in the hobby of roleplaying? When did you start writing for roleplaying games and what were some of your most notable designs?
I started a long time ago, late seventies I believe (I'm 64), with the very first editions of D&D. I remember reading the Greyhawk and Chainmail leaflets by Gary Gygax. A guy, Lennart Karlsson, that I still regularly meet at our monthly nerd pubs (alas suspended until post Corona), brought home these from the US, and he was my first Dungeon Master. After perhaps a year or two I thought it would be fun to DM myself, so me and a friend, Magnus Anå, started building a dungeon (rather than a world). Traditional old dungeons were getting tougher the further down you went, but attempting to be original, I made a mountain instead and then got the idea of actually building the mountain in foam rubber. Still have it.
I then progressed to AD&D and built more of a world, or part of a world that we played in. When RPG gaming came to Sweden as Drakar och Demoner (Dragons and Demons), which was built on RuneQuest, my friend Anå co-wrote one of the first adventures. He then suggested that I write an adventure from the stuff we were playing (he was then one of my players). This I did, and called it Svavelvinter (Winter of Sulphur, or The Brimstone Sleep, which is the English title). This adventure was commercially published, and became the first in my series Chronicles of the Fifth Conflux (1987-1993) that actually still is played and has considerable cult status in Sweden. The original adventures are readily auctioned off for $100-300 US nowadays.
Since I'm a writer of fiction and had already published a novel in 1980, in 2004 I started to write a series of fantasy novels built on the game setting and story. These were concluded in 2016, consisting of four novels totalling 2300 pages. In 2012 Free League published their very first RPG called Svavelvinter which was built on the novels, going full circle with the original story and setting. Concluding the novels, I discovered a Swedish death metal band called Svavelvinter, started by former RPG-player Christian Älvestam, and we made a full length album set in the polar island Marjura from the game and novel setting, released in 2018. I wrote the lyrics and Christian made the music. It's on Spotify etc, and you can see a nice video with one of the songs here:
(The Elvenspring half-elves in Forbidden Lands are actually named after Älvestam since they are called ”Älvestamlingar” in Swedish, Älvestam basically translating to "of elven ancestry.")
Apart from this I dabbled a little in a cyberpunk game, I believe from ICE.
2. Since most of my readers are English speakers, they're likely unfamiliar with the world of Swedish roleplaying games. How would you compare the Swedish and English language scenes? What are the similarities and differences between them, particularly when it comes to subject matter?
I don't really have much experience of different games, sad to say. That is, I'm more of a writer than a gamer myself.
What I think is remarkable is that the Swedish RPG scene is so big compared to how big our language area is. After all, only about ten million people speak Swedish, while English is spoken by 1.5 billion persons. I believe the explanation for this is the big impact RPGs had in Sweden in the 1980s and 1990s. I meet grown ups (?) everywhere: doctors, researchers, plumbers, politicians, farmers, artists etc, that have been RPG-players in their youth and still are very nostalgic about it. I think the second wave we currently see mostly consist of these players having grown up and now taking Swedish RPGs internationally and to their kids.
Also, the Swedish market has always been varied. While D&D is very dominant in America, there has always been several popular games and genres in Sweden.
3. What was the origin of Forbidden Lands? Was the idea for it entirely your own or were you approached by Free League to create it? What previous media, whether books, comics, movies, or games served as its sources of inspiration?
Forbidden lands was first born as a stretch goal in a Kickstarter for an artbook with art by Nils Gulliksson from the initial Swedish golden age of RPG. I got Gulliksson's portifolio from Free League with the instructions to use the pictures for a game, but basically do what I wanted as long as I built upon them. The game was aiming to have old school fantasy flavour but with modern rules. I wrote the setting and the campaign Raven's Purge before there were any rules at all. This was fine by me, since I'm more of a narrative guy than interested in rules. So the initiative came from Free League, but I had very free hands in the setting.
I take my main inspiration from history, but basically use anything that inspires me, often music, and not seldom satire of our current days. In everything I write, I dislike doing what's already been done, so I try to come up with new twists and generally avoid inspiration from settings that others created (whether comics, movies, games and novels) – after all there's plenty around elsewhere. (I was very amused when somebody accused me of having stolen, but misrepresented Tiamat from D&D, when in reality I had gone back to the 4000 years old Mesopotamian myths where Tiamat is the primal mother).
I hope my ambition to be original shows in my work, for instance in the description of the "classical" kins, like halflings/goblins, elves and ogres. I love starting from ”what if …?” The reason I suggested ”kin” instead of ”races” in the game is more due to me being trained as a vet than anything else. Elves and dwarves basically are different species rather than races. I'm not however afraid of picturing racism or other bigotry in what I do, but then try to give the perspective from both sides in a matter of fact way, rather than moralizing. To my own surprise, orchs turned out to be perhaps the most sympathetic kin in the game. This said, I like to make nods towards things I like from other artists, but often in a different context. For instance, the demons Merigall and Krasylla in the game are vaguely based on Neil Gaiman's Sandman siblings Desire and Despair. I will probably use a couple of the other Sandman siblings as demons for the upcoming Aslene expansion and hope Gaiman can smile at this if he learns of it.
4. As an avid player of Forbidden Lands, I think you succeeded admirably in offering original takes on traditional fantasy elements. Are there any aspects of the Forbidden Lands setting that you're especially proud of?
I think overall the Forbidden Lands game came out surprisingly good and that the rules and setting and flavour seem so go very well together. While this partly depends on skill, I also think we got lucky that things fell into place. I might feel extra satisfied in having brought the jolly halflings and noble elves down in the gutter while still hopefully making them interesting to play and not just paraphrases or parodies.
5. You mentioned ”old school fantasy flavour” when you described Free League's instructions for creating Forbidden Lands. What did you understand they meant by that?
I assumed that Free League wanted the familiar and nostalgic feel of an old game, while also making it fresh and full of unexpected twists. That is very much how I work when I write fiction and it suits me. A reviewer of my novels said that ”it is like Granström cuts up our own world and reassembles it into something totally new. I like to do that.
6. You mentioned above that you also wrote Raven's Purge, the first campaign module for Forbidden Lands, which provides lots of additional details about the setting. Did you plan to write this from the beginning or was it a later development?
The campaign was developed in parallel to the setting, so it was natural to put some additional depth in it about the world.
Something that grew during the writing is the fact that the land's history in the basic books really isn't objectively true – it has a human centered perspective and is in all probability biased and even untrue here and there. I personally like that and think it reflects how history mostly has been written in our own world, but it wasn't really planned from start. I hope to expand this aspect in Aslene. The challenge now is to add depth, so that what earlier has been said still is important, even thought it might be challenged. If for instance something extremely compromising surfaced concerning the grounds of one of the major religions, the church would probably not embrace it but try to cover it up and persecute those claiming truth as heretics.
7. Are any of your novels available in English translation?
Alas no. I hope they will be someday, but so far they're only available in Swedish and Danish.
8. I know you said that you're more of a writer than a gamer, but have you had the chance to play any RPGs recently? If so, which ones?
Yes, my two grown-up daughters wanted to play Forbidden Lands with me as game master, so we are now running the Raven's Purge campaign with my son-in-law and two of their friends. It's really fun.
9. Do you have any other projects in the works at the moment?
Nothing RPG-related really. We've made a crude road-map of expansions for FL and I might do another one: Alderland south of Ravenland.
I'm also listed in a stretch goal for a Swedish SF RPG for kids, but that seems unlikely to materialize.
