Ten Reasons to Take a Look at The World of Fletnern

The World of Fletnern was first shown to the wider public in 1991 within various Board Enterprises products.  More and more depth has been added since that point, but that doesn’t mean all of you know about it.  So here are the ten reasons you should take a look at The World of Fletnern:
 

1.  It’s FREE!!  There is no money to check out Fletnern!

2.  It has everything a fantasy world needs to have.  It has dragons, knights, elves, dwarves, trolls, orcs, and on and on and on.  They’re all here.

3.  But all those normal things have different spins.  So it is not boring old elves stuck in a forest, but instead a dynamic society of the magical nobles and downtrodden (maybe rebellious) commoners.  Or there are the Circle Forest elves, many of which have turned to raiding viking style.  The orcs are fashioning the world’s largest empire.  The dwarves are (mostly) communists.

4.  Magic not only exists, but it is available.  Mages offer long distance teleportation.  Mentalists use telepathy to relay messages across the continents.  Hospitals have healers able to cure diseases and heal wounds.  This is high fantasy!

5.  The different cultures are different.  Not every human looks the same or acts the same.  Not every troll follows the same religion.  Every race is free to be who they want to be, even if that splits them into multiple factions.

6.  And on the subject of religions:  there are different religions.  Even the individual gods have more than one religion.  This is not a matter of “all elves worship this god and all worship him in the exact same way”.

7.  The price list makes sense.  Different products come from different places, and they are cheaper where they’re made.  But the economy doesn’t cause an apple orchard to face bankruptcy because the game designer didn’t understand math.

8.  The various factions are taking actions.  Unlike most of your computer game worlds, the rival factions and secret societies continue to plan, to prepare, and to take action.  There is constantly news in the world, because things are actually happening.

9.  The detail is there, but it’s not overwhelming.  Fletnern has many cultures that you will find interesting, possibly fascinating, and they all make sense.  But it was also developed to be run by anyone with whatever level of interest that they have.  Study it, or simply breeze through for some ideas - it doesn’t matter.  You will come to love it!

10.  But most of all, Fletnern is a world of adventure.  There are bad guys to defeat, monsters to tame, and ancient relics to recover.  The history isn’t some boring exposition, but instead written specifically to drive adventure hooks. 

Fletnern can be found for free at its wiki site:  https://fletnern.wikia.com/wiki/World_of_Fletnern_Wiki

A summary can be found at its page on our site:  http://www.boardenterprises.com/fletnern.html

And the truly in-depth write ups are contained within the Small Bites editions.  The free World Walker editions are available at:  https://www.rpgnow.com/browse/pub/376/Board-Enterprises

For anyone hoping to run Fletnern as a game world or use it for ideas on their own world, you may want to join us on Patreon and get the full sized Game Masters’ editions here:  https://www.patreon.com/boardent

The Future of the Sounding Board

So we’re thinking about how we might do certain things better, smarter in 2019.  One of the things we’re thinking of doing is delaying how we post the Sounding Board items.  The way we do this currently is as we’re finishing off the Small Bites edition, we post these to the blog.  So the Small Bites edition that comes out (theoretically) the last day of the month will have been preceded by these blog posts.  But what that means is that if a blog post caught your attention and you are a patron, you still need to wait one to four weeks for the edition to come out.  If you’re not a patron, it’s more like three to six weeks.

Attention spans being what they are in the modern day, that isn’t working for us.  In fact, the blog as a whole hasn’t been functioning all that well.  A couple years ago, we were in with a couple of blog advertising sites and they helped to direct a lot of traffic our way.  But they have both closed up, and traffic is now at a slow trickle.

We are not planning to close the blog down, mainly due to tradition.  It helped direct a lot of traffic to us and to our products for many years and simply ending it feels unfair.  But it is not serving as a great means to direct traffic to us today.  We believe that this change in timing - moving the edition’s blog posts from weeks before the World Walker edition is available to just after it has become available, might serve to direct some additional traffic to the edition.  It’s a “Did you like this?  Well there’s more at ...”

But if you’re reading this post, then you’re probably a frequent reader of the blog, and we wanted to at least explain our intentions to you.  As always, we are open to comments.  Does this change affect you?  Do you know any FRPG blog advertising sites that might help increase our exposure?  Is there a FRPG theme you’ve been dying to ask us for, but haven’t gotten around to asking just yet?  We’re here!  We listen!  Though admittedly, if you comment on a blog post from years ago, we don’t always see those, so you might want to email us at info@boardenterprises.com and let us know that you commented.

Is Being a Trope a Bad Thing?

I’ve just finished a conversation where I went on at length about how the orcs of Fletnern aren’t just tropes, but are instead a decently thought out society, that is both interesting and makes sense.  Briefly - The various orcish tribes inhabit the Wembic Empire based in the Gold Mountains.  The problem is that while called the Gold Mountains, there is no gold left in them having been mined out by the dwarves centuries ago.  The various tribes are different cultures; as different as American Indians are/were.

So, OK, these orcs aren’t mindless raiding morons who simply attack until some adventurers or other mercenaries come along and kill them.  That’s great, for those who want characters with depth and back story and some manner of goal beyond acquiring a high number of gold coins on their character sheet.  But what if you aren’t one of those?

I bad mouth “gold farmers” all the time, you know, those “role-players” who simply don’t put themselves into the minds of their characters but instead just adventure for the experience points.  But sometimes, it’s OK to be the orc killer - to just be a big, hulking warrior, who never bothers to use his brain but instead just wades through the bad guys hacking and slashing.  Why is this good?  Because it’s only a game (sacrilege, I know) and sometimes it just needs to be a release.

Most of us have been found, mouth slightly open, dead look in our eyes, focused on a screen of some sort killing dozens if not hundreds of bad guys in some rather mindless “adventure” game.  Usually we’ve lost all track of time and someone is trying to bring us back into reality.  We “zone out” because we can.  We zone out because we need it.  Lots of people have ways to check out of reality and stop thinking for a while.  Some drink, some read, some binge watch The Walking Dead.  We’re gamers; we do other things.

I am not going against everything I have ever written to say that you should go out and just slaughter-fest your way through a campaign filled with enemies and plots, but every once in a while, it’s kind of nice to just play an easy character - one without any baggage and without any drama.  You don’t have any friends outside the player characters and you just go adventuring.  The only thing you really want to find is the next dungeon, before you have to solve some riddle.  Maybe you’re the only “mindless” one in the party - that’s fine.  The rest can figure things out.  This week, you’re going to kick back and eat pretzels until one of them tells you to roll for initiative and then you get to kill things.  It’s kind of like therapy - only a lot cheaper.

During your next play session - Play a more mature character in a more mature way, but every once in a while, GMs should let the players just kind of go through the motions.  I can’t be the only one who needs to remind myself every now and again to relax and unwind.

All About City Guards and Police

Our latest edition:  Civilian Authority of Brinston aka All About City Guards and Police (and a little about crime, too!!) has been sent to all Patreon patrons.  If you are one, and you didn't get it, please let us know and we will correct the error ASAP!!!
If you are not yet a patron, please join us by going to:  https://www.patreon.com/boardent
You will get our full edition of the monthly world building and game mastering supplement (minimum 40 pages - this month's is 48) and get it weeks earlier than the people who wait to download the much shorter World Walker edition.  If you want an example of the World Walker edition, how about looking at our last month's version by clicking here.

As always, you should tell us what you think, because we actually listen to our customers and patrons!

Crime in the Poor Part of Town

Many of you may recall our earlier edition, All About Organized Crime.  In thinking through the neighborhoods of Garnock and the neighborhoods of Brinston, you might think that the poorer neighborhoods in Garnock are far worse to live in than the poor neighborhoods of Brinston.  That isn’t the case.

Even the poorest neighborhoods of Garnock have structure and rules.  The various families and gangs abide by these rules knowing that in the end, it’s better for everyone.  One of the reasons for this is that there really isn’t enough money to fight over.  When there isn’t any money, dying for something other than just trying to survive becomes silly.

In Brinston, there is always going to be some money.  Even in the poorer neighborhoods, there are ways to come by money.  There are criminal enterprises that can be performed for the wealthy, and there are rich homes that can be robbed.  While this seems like it might be the same in Garnock, Garnock is filled with experienced and lethal killers.  Brinston just doesn’t have the same level of infrastructure within its criminal enterprises.

In Brinston, things are far more chaotic.  A small gang of idiot kids can do a home invasion and profit enormously, but within a week, they are going to get jacked by another rival group of idiot kids.  The poor neighborhoods are cesspools of this dog-eat-dog violence, and there just isn’t a safe place to hide.  The only hope is to get enough coin together to get out of the neighborhood before it kills you.

To be clear, there is far less violence on the sands of the river shore.  Again, there is far less money to make violence worth it, plus these people are more of a small town community.  Certainly there are strangers everywhere, but the river shore communities typically know each other well enough that a young gang cannot hope to get away with chaotic crime.

We typically like these things to have a point, so here it is:  If you have not thought through how well established the criminals in your world are, then you probably should.  They might all be independent forces out there just trying to steal a buck, or they might be one enormous guild of thieves and robbers all reporting up the same structure, or hopefully somewhere in the middle.  But even once you do establish the infrastructure of crime, you also have to think through how those structures might change when you are talking about the different social classes.  The organization of criminals who prey on the poor, may be quite different from those who prey on the wealthy!

Civilian Authorities on the wiki

So it's Thanksgiving weekend.  Your tummy is full, and you you are looking for something to do that doesn't require much energy.  Why not check out the Fletnern wiki?  We've updated a number of the Civilian Authority entries, so you can get a jump on the Small Bites edition coming out at the end of the month (end of the month for Patreon patrons - later in December with the shorter World Walker edition for everyone else).

Don't know where to start?  Try here:
https://fletnern.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Civilian_Authority

Urban Adventures - Equipment

Your character arrives in a new city and immediately heads to the tavern.  You sit down, have a drink and the next thing you know a bar fight erupts.  What do you do?

If you pull out your magical sword and your large shield and wade into battle, you and your GM have done something enormously wrong!  It is entirely inappropriate for anyone to walk into a bar decked out for battling dragons.  or demons or whatever it is you fight.  Let’s think through a modern example:

You’re at a semi-nice restaurant on a date having dinner.  Just after the waiter brings out the salads, six SWAT officers enter the building.  They are wearing their Kevlar jackets and riot helmets, and carrying sniper rifles and automatic weapons (actual assault weapons, not what the news idiots want you to think are assault weapons).  What would you do in real life?  I’d leave.  I think most people would leave, unless they were afraid that this might attract the attention of said SWAT officers.

You see, people don’t go to restaurants wearing armor and carrying battlefield weapons unless they are there to arrest or possibly kill someone.  The fantasy tavern is no different!

When your character enters a new town, can we suggest something to you?  Go find an inn.  Know where you will rest your head for the night, and leave your kit there.  Now some adventurers may not be willing to do that.  They may think it is too risky to leave that much value in weapons and gear sitting unprotected in a hotel room.  Fair enough!  You should then take your meals at the inn, and never take your eyes off your room door.  Paranoia is nothing to be timid about!

But what you still cannot do is walk into a neighborhood tavern wearing metal armor including a helmet, carrying a battle weapon, and loaded with your standard array of healing potions and fire bombs.  If you do, several things will happen, including but not limited to:  The bouncer will ask you to leave your weapons at the door.  Someone from the establishment will go off to find the city guard to arrest you.  The other patrons will flee as soon as you clear the doorway for them.  The bartender will tell you last call was 20 minutes ago, and he doesn’t want any trouble.

Why would they react this way?  Because people who carry as many weapons as your adventurers do are typically only there to kill people.  Simply said - You are acting in a socially unacceptable manner.

So what is acceptable?  That really depends on the culture.  But here are the things we typically think in these situations:  A long sword is a battle weapon.  All two handed or hand and a half weapons are battle weapons.  Battle weapons are not appropriate for wearing while walking around a peaceful city.  Culture will dictate whether a saber, rapier, dirk or short sword is a battle weapon or might be allowable in public.  (We typically think these smaller swords are OK.)

Metal armor is not going to be acceptable.  Bigger bulkier non-metal armors are likewise not acceptable.  In some cases, some of the leather armors might be OK, but far less so in the summer months and less if they look like armor as opposed to looking like warm clothing.  A decent set of fur armor might be perfectly acceptable in a cold season, as it might appear very similar to what everyone is wearing.

Shields are going to be seen as battle gear and therefore not be acceptable.  Bucklers on the other hand are actually named for the ease at which they can be buckled on - to a belt or weapon, etc.  Bucklers are acceptable in most urban environments where they are seen as semi-appropriate personal defense.

But what happens if a group of city guards walks into a restaurant dressed in chain mail and carrying spears and shields?  Most likely, they will leave their shields and spears up against a wall, hopefully out of the way and not immediately ready to jump into combat.  They would likely remove their helmets and gauntlets as well.  They are sitting down to a meal, so they will leave as much of their battle kit off as is reasonable for the amount of time it takes to dress.

But this is entirely different for mercenaries!  City guards are most often seen as the good guys.  If strangers attempt to act in the same fashion, they are still going to cause unrest and concern for the people in the establishment.

We went over a lot of this in out last edition All About Fantasy Entertainment, so we’ll stop drilling so hard on this, but it is vitally important to recognize that there is a different dress code for when you are adventuring and when you are at home!

How Much is Safety Worth?

Let’s think through a couple of FRPG tropes:  In most cases, some powerful person or organization is able to pay a group of “adventurers” enough money for them to risk their lives performing some task.  Granted - the adventurers are expecting to be able to loot their enemies and make a bigger profit, but that’s beside the point.  The point is - Someone has enough money to get powerful people to do their bidding.

So, OK, what else might these powerful, rich, quest givers want?  Well, they’re going to want safety.  They want to make sure that “the bad guys” (their enemies whoever they are) cannot harm them or steal their stuff.  For this they hire guards.  And here in lies the big question:  How much are they willing to pay in order to get the best guards who might actually keep them safe?

The last post discussed taxes and this is why.  If you want your world to make sense, you need to tie some things together.  If you know what the tax base is, you can assign a percentage of that to the defense of your cities (or powerful people).  Now this does get tricky.  Take Brinston for example.  Even if we knew exactly what the budget of the military was - how much is army vs. navy?  How much handles facilities, like the city wall or the naval port?  How much is required for defense of the city?  the Port of Brinston?  the countryside?  the river?  And that defense of the city - what’s police vs. wall guards?

OK - but let’s focus on our actual subject:  How much is safety worth?  Let’s change the focus slightly:  how do you spend money on safety?  One aspect of this is what they are willing to pay for their “castle” or other building that will help keep them safe.  That’s an upcoming edition!  So the two aspects that really seem to matter here are:  people and gear.  You can hire the best people.  You can equip your guards with the best gear.  You might even be able to do both.

So this is where the balancing act comes in.  How much money are these powerful folks willing to spend?  How much do they need to spend?  If massive dragons come flying over the city every week, they need some pretty awesome defenders!  If the worst thing to be found in the city is a couple of pickpockets, then you probably aren’t looking for superheroes and colossus golems.  But appropriately gauging that threat level can be difficult.

So assume that a “normal” powerful person is going to try to err on the side of a little more than they need.  But if we’re talking about the people aspect, there really are two sides:  number and ability.  Since we’re mainly talking about cities and policing units, the number is going to be high.  In nearly every case, a large number of people is necessary, because no matter how good they are, the city guards cannot be everywhere at once.  In so many circumstances, the number is going to be determined by area and not choice.

So we’re back to ability and gear.  If you have people who are extremely well equipped, they may not need to be the best trained.  Conversely, if you have the best trained troops, you may not need to spend as much to equip them.  So what we’re trying to get you as the GM / world builder to do is to think through this choice:  How good do they need to be and therefore how do you get there?  Because (not knowing the rules you’re using), there may be a point at which it is cheaper to hand a mid-ranged guardsman a minor magic item than to pay for a better guardsman.  Does the magic item bring the guardsman up to the level of that better guy?  It might be that much cheaper to buy equipment instead of paying a higher salary every day.

Afraid that we might be beating around the bush, here it is:  Your PCs need to be afraid of the police in your city.  If they aren’t, then they have no worries about what the laws are or being held accountable.  That’s a very dangerous position for a GM to be in.  If the PCs can effectively battle against the entire city guard and come out on top, then they are going to do whatever they want.  Actions need to have consequences.

We’ve been talking about “powerful people”, and we’ve been talking about governments, specifically city or city-state governments.  This is your world that you’re building.  How do you want to establish a powerful enough force in your city(ies), but still make it reasonable?  We think, if you start thinking in terms of how much money your larger cities would have to spend, this might open you up to having vastly more powerful policing forces - whether they choose to focus on numbers, abilities or gear!