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FKR – Non-Exhaustive Analysis

EDIT: This post now serves as a Megapost collecting all my posts on FKR in a link tree for simple reference, updated as new articles are written:

Introduction

FKR (Free Kriegsspiel Revival/Renaissance, unless I’m not up to par with current nomenclature) has featured here a couple times. FKR is still having a moment, I’m somewhat associated with it, and I thought having an extra post people can point towards to newbies as an explanation would be at least an interesting contribution to do over half an hour. However, my interest is also doing an analysis of FKR as a concept, which problematic of play it’s meant to address, if any, and how it gets tangled up in perception with different objects like freeform.

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The Sunsetters Agents – Retrospective on Delta Green

Havoc, our Handler for a Delta Green campaign (my first play report of it is here), is a passive-aggressive little bitch about the lack of play reports. Hence, I’m writing a retrospective of our 8 sessions, with 5 operations, so far, with my impressions from a player perspective. Havoc has already said what he thinks from a Handler perspective here, here and here.

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Appendix W: Fantasy Edition

(Written in some 15 minutes to preserve the names that first come, otherwise I’d feel the need to constantly add.)

I was intending an Appendix N bandwagon for some time, so thankfully one happened.

The original Appendix N is a theft collection. By theft, I mean that elements of those stories were not simply taken as a thematic ethos, but turned into spells, monsters and content. It’s interesting to think about Appendices of fiction in that sense; is anyone putting Namekians in their pseudo-medieval fantasy setting. Does the Doctor appear as they are? Does Fagin wander the city? I have quite often, in this blog no less, taken things directly from source as game material, at least.

I don’t care to try and do a general Appendix N, since I believe in specific influences for the individual campaign. However, there are works that seem to put me in a gaming mood or that I aim to make into gaming, so let’s see. I will focus on inspirations to bring to a fantasy adventure campaign, not other sorts such as traditional horror investigation (although there’s surprising overlap.) I’m also leaving out such things as works of philosophy or history for simplicity’s sake.

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The Reanimator (Class)

De Humani Corporis Fabrica

A psychoanalyst in touch with the esoteric. A too dedicated nurse. A budding geneticist or biologist with uncanny vision. A mutant whose cells only want to hug. A mother who can’t bear to lose another one. A child in the backyard with a scalpel and a quiet dog.

You can heal an ally from the Slow condition caused by Critical Damage.

At Level Two, you get Cure Dice (starting at 1d6, +1d per level), and can roll or take the median result to heal stat damage during a delve or mission. You recover these at downtime, one every two days. Describe what cure looks like. A psychoanalyst might heal STR and DEX by convincing or reminding the target of unusual theories about the becoming nature of the body-mind, or readressing their fundamental humors; a nurse might restore CHA with great bedside manners and support, or soft, non-intrusive head trauma.

When improving your stats during level-up, you can state to the GM that, besides studying, you played with yourself. Say what you did according to the improved stat (a small extra eye or experimental stimulant for DEX, a replacement finger or changed metabolism for STR, vocal surgery or induced heterochromia for CHA etc.)

Once every four months, you can do dedicated research in downtime to improve one of your allies (use the Electric Bastionland or Cairn Scar table.)

Notes:

Oddlikes describe that standard Critical Damage reduces the character to crawling. I’m assuming a character that suffers it is Slow for movement purposes; the Reanimator as class exists to safeguard against this resource depletion in the crawl structure, as well as other depletions. This also means that the Reanimator is an easy target and must be protected.

I’m assuming the level-based progression from the original Into the Odd, requiring therefore that the Reanimator takes an assistant or apprentice to keep evolving; I will probably also require monetary investment into a clandestine clinic.

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The Day’s Advice: Run It

Be confident. If your prep or ideas feel incomplete or uninteresting, run it anyway and let play complete them.

Let them speculate, then use their speculations with your twist. If they catch you short of a name, ask them to name it.

Write down your new rule or system and immediately call for a session. Use the rule in play. Otherwise, wait until the campaign needs the rule to write it.

A short session is better than waiting for a longer session.

Never let a strong idea be diminished or bogged down by reasoning. Don’t kill a darling when you can share it and let it grow with others.

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Glaugust: Doomed Fighters

(Old notes I’ve found of years prior, back when running a freeform thing. Typed up unaltered for Glaugust HPless combat prompt)

Damage takes two forms: Wound and Doom. Assume:

  • A character can take one Wound. A second wound becomes Doom.
  • Damage causes a Wound, not direct Doom, unless something is known to be Dooming by itself (the roar of a monster, fighting while heartbroken, swearing your life in the next stroke)
  • Referee and players can establish new things that are Dooming during play. Write them down.
  • It takes a resource and time to heal from a Wound. It takes a miracle in short-notice to recover from Doom.
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d6 Cutting Deals

Desde un rincón el viejo gaucho estático, en el que Dahlmann vio una cifra del Sur (del Sur que era suyo), le tiró una daga desnuda que vino a caer a sus pies. Era como si el Sur hubiera resuelto que Dahlmann aceptara el duelo. Dahlmann se inclinó a recoger la daga y sintió dos cosas. La primera, que ese acto casi instintivo lo comprometía a pelear. La segunda, que el arma, en su mano torpe, no serviría para defenderlo, sino para justificar que lo mataran. Alguna vez había jugado con un puñal, como todos los hombres, pero su esgrima no pasaba de una noción de que los golpes deben ir hacia arriba y con el filo para adentro.

El sur, Jorge Luis Borges

(Challenged myself to write a post in ten-minutes)

If you want something dead, you want a good knife. No gun will do for a sophisticated fighter of the city; cowards strap fire to their hips, hoping it will burn the other more. A knife fight, for you, is equally dangerous and therefore vital.

There are six sellers of good knives in your city.

  1. Lemon looks like she just sucked one the whole time she stares daggers at you. Her daggers are very rudimentary, stained by coffee—how did metal get stained like that?—and with a handle as black as her nail polish. She wants the greatest music festival ever held in town, and she knows exactly where a holy church organ capable of new goth music is buried… The dagger will sing with the voice of the damned, unnerving those standing against you.
  2. Knife’s Edge Services has a phone booth. The voice rings like a bell. They want you to run a freelance service against the troublesome gang whose debts are due. The knife is sharp enough to cut and separate a body of water or fire so you can cross it.
  3. The Arachnid is a scarred man, although that’s hard to see beneath his long fuzzy hair. His stiletto nails are offered in exchange for running one of them around your head, taking away your ability to dream of anything besides lying awake in a web, waiting for a spider to come. The stiletto nail casts paralysis in any limb that it strucks.
  4. The Cut-Up Librarian can be found with a switchblade in hand, turning newspapers and old books into nonsense poetry, that is, accurate apocalyptic visions he doesn’t allow anyone to read. You can have a small zine on the secrets of knives, if you bring to him an arcane book you should not find. Any knife you wield after reading it will give you the perfect opportunity to disarm the opponent, and you won’t be overwhelmed by flanking.
  5. The Ghoul Gourmet prepares his latest avant-garde feast for the occult demimonde with some of the finest knives ever seen in a kitchen. They are all yours if you give away the hand that would yield them (you will get a wood replacement, not as good for precise work but decent enough for stabbing), as he needs something to hold the apple at the table’s center. The knife is so hungry that even if you die in combat, your body will keep moving until all your enemies are dead or every part of you is destroyed.
  6. The Heartbroken is a young girl who haunts schools. She is recognizable by the sound she does with her mouth synchronized with the sound of her scissors. One of them, capable of cutting the ties between a pair of people you choose, are yours if you are willing to give away forever the positive relationship you have with a faction.
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Adventuring Companies and Patrons

Nothing complex here, just an observation.

Adventure games of D&D ilk assume a wild west social organization, which means a capitalist social organization. The average D&D setting assumes (technologically, even) at least an Early Modern conception, perhaps reaching late Victorian.

If we treat its implied ideal setting as post-apocalyptic, the end of the world was easier to imagine than the end of capitalism indeed. So who are adventuring parties and hirelings/retainers here?

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Midnight’s Garden, of Good & Evil – Glaugust 2025 (Killing with Sadness)

Helen Vaughan from The Great God Pan. Art by mgkellermeyer.

The dwelling of Count Midnight is so full of color, of exotic dyes and vivid furniture, that all grayness befell his frail body and dull, insomniac eyes. He receives parties of heroes, sure they won’t try to kidnap him for ransom, nor try to sack the luxurious passages and rooms of his manor. After a delicious but modest dinner, during which he will always follow the movements of the dinner hall’s antique wall clock, he will guide them into a once beautiful, now ruined room, covered with toys and clothing long stained with dirt and seized by vigorous roots. All of them come from the slightly ajar closet door. The heroes will venture within while the Count sits in bed, his servants spying the affairs.

Within the closet, the players will find the Garden of Midnight, the Count’s daughter who springs around a vivid grotto, keeping autumn at bay. Her playful smile is as everlasting as the melancholy that emanates from her voice and spite. She’s a heartless thing.

The grotto offers much. Delirious, almost fae fruits and nuts that might support a whole city’s famine and defend against plague. Nectar and sap so rich alchemy and ritual might find much use as a component Wood so sturdy that a vessel built from it will be as powerful as the thousand ships that sailed in ancient wars.

But all taken from the garden will be rot unless it’s granted by Midnight. Her rules are clear:

  • It must be earned in single combat between her and a champion. She strikes with the power of a giant, and wields her rose thorn rapier with the dexterity of the finest swashbuckler. If the party cheats and tries to attack, the garden will seize the sources of light, and the laughter of dryads will spring from the botanical hell as fallen cherubs. The party will face Midnight’s florid companions, herself, and the darkness of her name.
  • If violence isn’t desired, each member must give her the happiness of their deepest bond. They will take a step forward and kiss her; her lips taste of peaches and scorn. Love or camaraderie will flow from the hero to her. A killing sadness will infect them, and the beloved forgotten will feel it too. A coin toss, or GM fiat, determines whether the beloved contact or the hero is the one who turns into a mortuary statue. If specific contacts or bonds aren’t relevant to the campaign, take away the charisma of the hero and their ability to lead retainers forever. The player is also cursed, and no hero they create afterwards for the same campaign will be able to inspire courage and love from those they lead into the fight.

If Midnight is satisfied or killed, allow the heroes to carry what they want. It won’t rot in either case, unlike their broken hearts.

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Note-Taking in Investigation Games

So I’m a player in Havoc’s Delta Green campaign, until either my schedule makes it impossible, the campaign fizzles out as it goes or his showcase as a Handler sucks so hard I ragequit. Whatever the case, I’m not only playing, but also tracking time and taking notes of clues and leads. It’s plenty of work, but it’s made easier by organizing where information should be written and in which order.

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