Castle Cult Casino

 

The Castle is the Dice

It’s a casino.

You gamble your life every time you go in there.

It is run by a cult.

In that there is an enigmatic yet mysterious figurehead, an inner circle, an outer circle, then everybody else. This pyramid hierarchy system is simple. 

The everybody else category of people are generally fleeced for everything they have whenever they come into the castle.

Yet, somehow, if they leave, they leave with a smile on their face, feeling satisfied and planning to return. 

‘If’ they leave is a reminder that there are dungeons below the castle. The denizens of said dungeons are a tradable commodity with the everybody else.

There are six possible directions in or out of any room. Seven if you use magic (which requires power ups). 

Dealing With A Door

A door is a riddle, a puzzle, a portal. It’s all good and easy if the door is open. If not a way must be found to persuade it to open. This may be use of an appropriate key, appropriately appropriated. It may be the uttering of an enchanting mouth noise.

At The Gaming Table

The first thing you should notice is the floor is chequerboard. The room is the gaming table. Astute travellers will question where the pieces are. Wizards will ponder the rules, which is of course what makes them wizards. 

There may indeed be a symbolic wooden tables and benches in the centre or at the side or one end of a room. Whatever is upon it is also symbolic.

A banquet feast means you are eating the food of the place, taking its energy into yourself. While this sustenance may be nutritious, or poisonous, it has the effect of imbuing, the energy of the place into you. Snacks are available to ensure this continues. 

The Rules

Rule One

The more complicated a system is, the more potential for confusion, error and manipulation, there is within that system. 

Rule Two

Every occurrence of a variable increases complexity of the system. 

Therefore it increases potential for confusion, error or manipulation. 

Variables add complexity. Complexity is defined in terms of variables. 

Rule Three

Assumption creates deviation, complexity, variation. 

Nothing is ever so complicated than preconceptions. 

By this, the visitor exposes all. 

*Extrapolation of Rule Two;

There is flow (yin) and there is gate (exchange). 

Gate is a variable. 

Gate either: splits flow, changes state or direction of flow, streamlines two into one, makes more or less complicated (distillation / derivation). 

Gate is alchemical. 

An example is a dice roll. 

TBC

I am writing this blog entry as the words and ideas come to me in my spare time for the sake of it. 

This concept is intentionally fully compatible with The Infinite Castle supplement for Brains&Brawn RPG, both available from DriveThruRPG. B&B and TheInfiniteCastle are copyright Ordo Octopia. 

The Castle Is The Dice  is also compatible with the open-license free-to-all SLOP game system. The idea cane from a randomly generated AI art picture used to illustrate SLOPs (the illustration with four characters, each representing an element, each representing a statistic from that game system).

SLOP

Yes, I grew up on 80s video games as a kid.

You need 3 stats: 

lives, speed and oxygen. 

Also power-ups. 

You need 4 stats. 

And magic. 

You need 5 stats. 

Can’t we use power-ups for magic?

We need 4 stats. 

SLOP

Speed Lives Oxygen Power

Sorted.

Applying this to role-play game system, I would be tempted to use a scale of 1 to 5 which fit snugly with the D6-1 or alternatively, D6, where rolling six is a massive power up that gives you another dice to roll.

Fire = Action = Speed

Earth = Body = Lives

Air = Mind = Oxygen

Water = Emotion = Power 

It may be imperfect but when you’ve only got four statistics to do everything with its not bad.

Oxygen is valuable if you live in space or go underwater. Or delve into a stinky cave where the wind never blows.

Staying true to the video game genre, power ups are not innate, they come from discovering them in the environment or nabbing them from other characters.

Your character starts with 1 Power point. 

One PowerPoint is worth one D6. 

As we are using oxygen for intelligence because it relates to mind in the hermetic tradition of alchemy, the first three stats; speed, lives, oxygen, define your characters abilities.

You get nine points to arrange around those three stats. 

Each stat must have at least one because to have zero in any of the means you’re dead. Not unconscious; dead. You can have no more than five points per stat, the maximum under normal conditions.

So it is possible you can assign five points to one stat and two points to two of the other stats. 225. Or 234. Or 333. Try not to be boring. 

To test any stat against yourself, roll 1D6 and get equal or less than the stat rate. 

To compare any stat competitively against somebody else, roll 1D6 and add the relevant stat rate.

RPGcults

The role-playing games culture, communities and industry has always been a place where two things are happening. 

The most important thing:

It is a place where people can develop their imagination and freethinking skills, emphasising and encouraging our ability to think for ourselves through a diverse range of situations. In many ways it is a safe practice zone for real life, exploring consequence and accountability. 

Older and experienced GamesMasters train people through the traditional ancient devices of storytelling and game mechanics in motivation-based decision-making processes which require and develop clarity of thinking and sometimes morality checks. 

The other thing occurring is: dark triad trait controllers enjoying the power they wield over a group of zombies who they can railroad for the enjoyment of all, some more than others. 

The mechanics of subDom from BDSM culture can be overlaid on the gathering of gamers for sessions exploring scenes. In many cases the same language is used in both cultures.

As ttrpg* is generally associated as a kids game, not so many people are confident (or experienced) to publicly discuss about that. 

Despite which the demographic of post-millennial ttrpg associated sales is exponentially within the 30-50 age range, predominantly white men. I have not the data for pre-millennial sales to compare. It is probable the same individuals buying ttrpg stuff as kids are still the same individuals buying ttrpg stuff as adults. 

*ttrpg ‘table-top role-playing games’, including both pen&paper games and miniature war-games (which often overlap). 

Both involve “the rolling of the dice” indicating and symbolising a risk element involving chance and invoking fate. 

“Zombies cannot think clearly. But they can hate.”

The delusion that it is okay for them to abuse somebody so long as the general belief is that person is an abuser who deserves it. 

Inventing, lying, fabricating evidence and manipulating events to justify the targeted abuse. Group reinforcement from an echo-chamber who use the degradation of their target in attempt to elevate themselves above the very behaviour they are themselves doing but blaming the target for. 

Although not literally the enactment of parlour-games in the sens du boudoir, the non-physical elements of BDSM, emotional and mental cruelty and deviations, most certainly is extant. 

CheckList80

Wales Valleys 

HomeBrew Rules for D&D 

1980s 1990s 

The “What do you want to do?” checklist. 

Kill it 

Fuck it

Fight it

Steal it

Drink it 

Burn it 

Ignore it

Forget it

This came from the Welsh Valleys Player Groups and caught on across (at least) three counties (that I knew of). Not through any fault of my own; I have always promoted character development and story content over hack&slash. 

As a kid and young teen I had a wide social group because of extra-curricular activities and changing schools. We didn’t have internet and mobile phones back then so I lost contact with so many people from the old days. 

In our rpg sessions we quickly dumped the time consuming laborious necessity to use Character sheets at all. Introducing new people to the game, often girls and younger nerds, the same way older nerds had introduced us to it, to optimise the actual playing time, the story content time, plus lack of bits of paper and dice available meant our cultural playstyle was improvisational and quick. 

“What is your character?”

Barbarian, Wizard, Evil-Wizard, (the colour-specific) Knight, Elf-Maiden, Fairy-Princess, “I dunno” generic Adventurer, Strangler, and Ninja-Assassin were the most popular character types. 

“You have one weapon according to your Character type.” 

It was always the most obvious thing. 

Next, no matter what adventure the GamesMaster improvisational thrust the group into…

“You are all gathered in the courtyard of the Castle.”

…the following sequence of events would happen. 

Strangler: “I strangle the Elf-Maiden.” 

The stranglers Aim and conditions for winning the game are to strangle as many people as possible preferably everyone before someone permanently prevents it. 

Ninja-Assassin and Knight: “I kill the Strangler before he strangles the Elf-Maiden.”

Gamesmaster: “Strangler is dead.”

Elf-Maiden “I thank the knight by taking him into a room in the castle.” 

Ninja-Assassin: “What about me?”

Elf-Maiden: “oh wait, I thought you were the Knight and he is the Ninja-Assassin.”

They sort it out.

Elf-Maiden: “I don’t really mind, really.”

GamesMaster: “What is everyone else doing while this is going on?”

Knight, Elf-Maiden and Ninja-Assassin characters get bored and wander off somewhere together. As far as they are concerned they have won the game by achieving their character goals of using the story to justify wandering off somewhere together in real life. 

At this point it’s contemporary to elucidate how in the social groups I was involved with even during the late 80s early 90s there was a 50/50 chance the Knight and Ninja-Assassin players were male or female while the Elf-Maiden and Fairy-Princess players were always female. 

GamesMaster: “Who is left?”

Fairy-Princess: “I wake the Strangler up.”

Strangler: “I’m dead.”

Everyone else: “I thought he was dead.”

Fairy-Princess: “I am a Fairy and a Princess so I am using my Fairy-Princess magic to wake the Strangler up.” 

GamesMaster: “Fair enough. Strangler, you’re alive again now.”

Strangler: “I thank the Fairy-Princess. No wait a minute do I know she has brought me back to life?” 

GamesMaster: “I don’t know. Fairy-Princess does he know you have brought him back to life using your magic?” 

Fairy-Princess: “No it’s a secret. Nobody knows.” 

There is a fifty-fifty chance the Strangler character is male or female. The same rule applies for the Barbarian, Wizard, Evil-Wizard. “I dunno” generic Adventurers are always usually male. Nobody knows why or if they do they’re keeping quiet about it. 

Barbarian: “I get bored and punch the Wizard.”

Wizard: “What? Why?”

Barbarian: “I’m bored.”

GamesMaster: “Okay. You punch the Wizard. Wizard what do you want to do?”

Wizard: “I cast a spell of Niceness on the Barbarian so he doesn’t hit anyone again.” 

GamesMaster: “Say your magic words.”

Wizard: “Ahamabalamba” 

As far as the Wizard player is concerned he has won the game because everyone laughs and half the people repeats the Wizards magic word. It is a moment they have all been waiting for. This word will be repeated occasionally for several weeks by various members of the party even when the rest of the party are nowhere around. Such is the power of magic words intuited during spontaneous roleplaying sessions. 

Strangler: “While everyone is distracted with laughter I strangle the Wizard.” 

It is the perfect set-up. The Strangler has struck at the most opportune moment. 

Everyone: “Shit.” 

GamesMaster: “The Wizard…”

Everyone: “Yes?”

GamesMaster: “…is…”

Everyone: “Yes?”

GamesMaster: “…dead.”

Everyone: “Nooooo!!!”

Elf-Maiden: “Hey you didn’t all cry out like that when I was strangled!” 

Everyone: “We did! We did!”

GamesMaster: “You don’t count, you’ve wandered off somewhere into the castle.”

Strangler: “I strangle the Adventurer!”

Generic Adventurer: “It’s not your go.”

Strangler: “Everyone was distracted again by the Elf-Maiden interrupting.”

GamesMaster: “This is true but it’s still not your go. Some of them haven’t had a go at all yet.”

Generic Adventurer: “I stop the Strangler!”

GamesMaster: “How do you do that?”

Generic Adventurer: “Do I have a weapon?”

GamesMaster: “Yes you have a sword.”

Generic Adventurer: “I stab him.”

Everyone: “Gasp!”

GamesMaster: “Where do you stab him?”

Various people make various suggestions. 

Generic Adventurer: “In the funniest of places!”

Everyone laughs. 

GamesMaster: “The Strangler is dead. Again.”

Everyone (including the Strangler), speaking almost but not exactly at the same time so every voice is individually heard in its own space as part of the collective: “Again.”

Strangler: “Rats.”

Everyone laughs. 

Evil Wizard: “I cast the Death Spell.”

GamesMaster: “Who do you cast the death spell on?”

Someone: “The Dreaded Death Spell!”

Someone else: “Dreaded Death Spell of Doom!”

Some other people, chanting: “Doom! Doom!” and “Death and Doom!”

Evil Wizard: “EVERYONE!”

Everyone (including the dead people): “Noooo!!!”

GamesMaster: “Including yourself?” 

Evil Wizard: “Er.” A dramatic pause of baited breaths ensues. “Hang on a moment, I’m not sure yet.”

GamesMaster: “Everyone is dead.” 

Most people feel they have won the game because they have successfully  accomplished their characters goal. Some feel they have won simply by taking part in the adventure. Nobody really cares much that they’re all dead. 

Next week will be another variation of the same story with some minor changes, most probably with different people playing the different parts. The session was a collective ritual. 

I swear to the Gods we did versions of almost exactly this same session multiple times with different people playing different roles in different ways and in different places. 

The strangest thing of all is some of the groups didn’t know anyone else from the other groups or even have any awareness that they existed, aside from myself to observe the progression and compare sessions. I swear was not generating it myself. I usually always played the Wizard or Generic Adventurer, not a lead role. 

I spent years trying to explain to people about ‘speakers of the cosmic script’ ‘tapping into something’ and ‘underlaying structures affecting us collectively and subliminally’ before the movie The Matrix came out and now everyone says ‘oh the matrix’ whenever anything like that happens, which it does a lot more often than most of us are willing to be openly aware of. 

Sometimes the boys would play without any girls around in which case the story developed very differently. See: Player Checklist. To this day I still have no idea at all what female-only roleplaying sessions are about. I might possibly be grateful for that. 

New World Story

New Year 

RPG world 

intro story 

c2023  1st draft 

“The old world is dying and dead. It is a time for new heroes to emerge.”

Every generation says that same stale ritual. This time it is real. 

The hatreds and bitter envies, vengeance and greed, delusions and aspirations of the elder generation was a maelstrom of hyped activity. An alien language to the youth who have survived. 

A war came followed by plague and famine. The few who remain of our kind wander the empty lands and ruins, seeking to make sense of a fragmented history. 

Legends abound of locations. The trade port of flesh and chain. The tower of learning. Walled farms. 

Nobody knows the secret of the explosive black powder which wrecked stone fortresses. Nobody can imagine the number of people required to have built such places as empty towns and citadels. 

Snow lays on burnt plains which once were farmed fields, so we are told by a few despaired elders. Those who gave up on teaching us the way of scrolls, of smithing, of carpentry, of tannery. I know these words but not of the crafts involved. 

Now you stranger begin to understand what has happened here. We are accepting of the new thing. The elders say it is anew thing or that they were blind to it in their time of youth. Others such as yourself are coming in and wearing the bodies of our world as your own. 

You know things we can not imagine. Some say it is demons summoned by a darkness. Others say it is beings of light sent to help by benevolent gods. We have no other sign of gods for they have left us if they ever walked amongst us. This is a time for new gods. Those we make by rebuilding a world. 

You are one of the strangers wearing human form awaken from the shock and horror of our human condition. Somewhere in the wandering, you came into our world as one enters a lucid dream. 

The strangers who tell stories of another world to ours where forces of which we have no comprehension abide. Lightning trapped into vines making glass light up like rainbow fire and talk with others far away. Armour large enough for many to wear which travel impossibly fast through sky and ocean, across land, drinking a liquid form of the black powder. 

We need reinvent the black powder. We need reinvent the soap which our forefathers used to protect against fetid festering. We need relearn the art of planting food to harvest later. 

The strangers know such things better than we children of war. Memories of your world teach us ways we never could have guessed. The skills of strangers are a blessing.