About Smack

The original Smack was a campaign that I started running about 12 years ago. The first and most infamous Smack campaign ran for about 2 and a half years. Smack is a dark low magic fantasy campaign setting in a world plagued by subtle fiendish influences. The setting is predominantly human orientated but little people are known in on one of the continents. All other races if they exist are not common knowledge to most humans. Magic is considered witchcraft or a myth by most.

What’s in a name?
Smack was originally known as ‘To be High on Smack’ after the characters had participated in several crazy events and had a few nasty dreams that no sane sober person should have or be involved in. Smack ended up working as an acronym for Suicidal Maniacs And Cult Killers which aptly described the game and players well. It was always a little awkward when Tyrant Mithras who was only the tender age of 16 was telling his mother he was heading around to my place for some Smack. Still Smack is a name that worked and has moved far beyond the original comic reference we gave it.

Smack World Overview
As hinted in the title I should write a little about the Smack world. I do intend on working on a wiki one of these days which will present the world in much more glorious detail and deal with the different Smack Ages, power organisations, nations, religions, cultures, heroes and villains.

There are two primary contents in Smack, the eastern kingdom which is based off the old Roman and Alexandrian empires. A series of states bound under a single emperor, a myriad of cultures and religions based on ancient Rome, Greece, Macedonia, and some Indian cultural influences. The west continent is closer to dark ages Europe, split into 4 kingdoms along the eastern side of the continent and a large desert with middle-eastern like inhabitants and culture on the west. The Kingdoms are predominantly controlled by a Church inspired by some of the worst aspects of the Catholic Church during the Dark Ages. Kings are little more than powerful figureheads and the Church governs the day to day of the people.

Between the two continents are a string of islands through which most trade between the Empire and Kingdoms is done. These islands are home to freebooters, petty satraps and would be pirate kings. The satraps of these islands strike a delicate balance between allowing piracy unchecked for the incomes it brings and not allowing too much of it lest it direct Kingdom or Empire navies their way.

Hidden amongst the general populace, the political power brokers and the faithful, sinister cults, ancient beings and other entities make thousand year plans and quietly fight for the soul of a world oblivious to their existence. 

Play Style
It was a game where players turned up week to week to see what nasty things there characters might experience, what things they might try to prevent. The world was bleak enough that even the anti-heroes the characters became were a shiny lights in the darkness. The players loved it. They could feel the impact of their actions on the world, they came ready to play in character during game sessions and kept secrets they were privy to themselves. It was a strongly character development driven game, a strong story game. Combat was rarely random, was often deadly or had other consequences. The world reacted to them in real ways. They weren’t heroes known to the populace famed for slaying dragons. They weren’t kings, princes or emperors. They were for the most part three guys caught in bad circumstances trying to stop dark forces most of the world was influenced by but few new about. The game play had strong elements of Call of Cthulhu, World of Darkness and Ravenloft. It had themes and ideas from everything from Dune by Frank Herbert, to Diablo 2 to Pirates of the Caribbean. We borrowed what we liked and discarded the rest. There were secrets layered upon secrets and the game kind of wrote itself. Even random choices made by myself and Yeti in the beginning ended up naturally having reasons.

It has been run on D&D 3rd edition and 3.5, GURPS 4th edition, Pathfinder, New World of Darkness and scratch built homebrewed rules. Still trying to find a decent set of rules that are easy enough to manage but allow the flexibility and power limitations I feel the game needs to work.

Afterword and Privilege
There is no greater experience as a GM than having a game that virtually writes itself, where players turn up week after week and participate in the game, not to get the next brass ring but to see where the story goes, how the world will react to their actions and what challenges they will be met with. To Yeti, Tyrant Mithras, His Neutralness, and Cassius the Brave I thank you for making Smack 1 what is it was for me and inspiring the legend that will hopefully make it out of its lunchbox one day for others to enjoy.

To Jo, Namloth, Jonathan, Gaia, Freya, Ruby, and the others who forged dark stories and spent their evenings unravelling dark secrets over a few drinks together, thank you for helping me round out and fill the world with stories and heroes.

Sadly the third and final arch of the campaign never got run. After the second arch finished, players’ lives became busier, some of us got married had kids and moved away. Other Smack campaigns were spawned but sadly the final arch of Smack 1 was never played but the story still lives on in my head with a promise that one day I will find time to run it or write it. In the meantime watch this space for stories, articles and lessons learned advice about gaming I learned from running Smack.

'You see Timmy it’s not fun listening to your friends talk and quote lines from a movie that you have no idea about and haven’t seen.'

The Ghost of Campaigns Yet to Come

This is the third and final post in my a Campaign Carol series of articles focused discussing common mistakes that Game Masters make when trying to run a sequel to their golden campaign.  In this post I discuss the ghosts of campaigns yet to come.

There comes a time in the life of every campaign world or setting to let it go, and not in the Disney princess sort of way but more in the Lego movie kind of way. If you are lucky, it will be because one of the players you have tortured for the last decade has developed Stockholm syndrome and wishes to share the beautiful pain they have endured with others and hopefully not strike down like a sith apprentice does to replace their master in the process.  Letting go of creative control is hard, but it is also very rewarding, particularly when you have an enthusiastic player who has lived and breathed that world with you.

I was very lucky, for me this player was Tyrant Mithras who developed such a love of suffering that he decided he wanted others to experience the fun of turning up to game never knowing whether you were going to get a swift kick to the crotch or another fingernail pulled out.  Tyrant Mithras has the unique distinction of having played in every one of my moderately unhinged Smack campaigns from before he was legally allowed to indulge in the panacea of a good bottle of scotch to wash away the pain.

There is nothing that strokes the narcissistic ego quite like the feeling of having a some poor masochistic player like the stories you told and created together that they want to sit in the GM’s seat and run a few of their own.  This is both flattering and a little terrifying.  I imagine this can be a little like what parents feel the first time they let their kids drive their car unsupervised unsure if the car is going to come back as an oversized paperweight or not.

You see Timmy if you try to control the destiny of your child they will end up a maladjusted poorly socialised basement dwelling gamergate poster boy and no one wants that.

The point is they are going to want to do things in your world that might make you as uncomfortable as a devout priest at a swingers club.  They may change the story, or interpret concepts in ways you didn’t consider and maybe don’t feel like they fit your version of the world.  It will likely happen, but it’s a good thing.  Giving up creative control can be difficult, particularly when you have lost at least a decade of your life designing and thinking about the world; its history; its planned futures; its heroes and villains. But now, that a young hopefully not too damaged protégé has expressed interest in running it, all those thousands of hours might not be wasted. Just like that Minecraft replica of Paris that you built instead of studying for your finals, someone might actually appreciate it enough to use it.

However, much like the lessons taught by the ghost of campaigns present, don’t overburden or constrain their view of the world by imposing your own, let them create their interpretation of it.

You see Timmy sometimes you need to let them slaughter a few of your sacred cows so they can serve up that van-tastic sacrilegious meat.

Let me tell you the story of Smack 4 and how I contributed to its demise much like Brutus on the Ides of March.  Between the echoing deaths of Smack 3 and the moderate success of Smack 5 there was a short lived game run by Tyrant Mithras.  Smack 4 aimed to take one of Tyrant Mithras’ favourite organisations I had created and explore it in depth.  The Unfortunately, like an overly obsessed parent I kept offering unsolicited advice or commenting on concepts based on my view of the organisation and how I envisioned that it should be run which stifled the very cool ideas that he had for it. Concepts which were actually are a lot better than anything I have done with it since and actually tie in a lot better for the future I had envisioned for the organisation.  Instead I struggled to let go, struggled to look at the big picture and embrace the very Smack thematic concepts he was introducing.  My version of the organisation was as sterile as a ball pin eunuch whereas Mithras’ was like that of a serial Power Thirst junkie.

The game probably died for other reasons, crazy ex-girlfriends being one of them but my impact on it feels like I tarnished and maybe hurt what otherwise would have been a very cool campaign and added a lot of depth to the world that I wasn’t ready to explore, or couldn’t have done as well.

It can be hard playing in a world that you created when someone starts changing things to accept the changes and see them for depth they will inevitably bring.  It is hard as a player to let go of ideas that you had as a GM and enjoy what your apprentice has brought to the world.  It can be a little easier as a casual observer, as I will be this time as I am living thousands of kilometres away.  My advice is that whether you get the joy of being a player, or an observer is during game forget what you think you know about the world and enjoy what is presented and between games act as a library or resource for your protégé when they want more information.  Of course never reveal all of your secrets so that you still have things to surprise them with next time you run another campaign.

Like most projects, world building and campaign building generally benefits from collaboration, it adds depth and different perspectives to your campaign world.  Much like studying history, different people and cultures view events and historical figures in different ways, discover new insights and add depth to our understanding of the world.  If nothing else adventuring is much more fun when you have someone to share it with.

At the end of the day the best thing to do is sit back, forget what you thought you knew about the campaign world and have some fun rolling some dice with friends.  

You see Timmy as much fun as digging for cat poo in the sandpit by yourself is sometimes it’s more fun to witness the joys of others discovering a sandy nugget as they build their castles.

This concludes the Campaign Carol articles.  Like the Ghost of Marley don’t let your new campaigns get weighed down by the successes and failures of last campaigns.  Embrace new concepts, don’t create chains to weigh you down and destroy your new campaigns.  Existing material adds depth but quickly gets old and should be a vehicle to help deliver a new campaign and not a noose around its neck.

Next series of articles will be Smack Talk and will discuss other lessons and tips I have learned and share stories of games I have run.

You see Timmy, change is good and healthy. So remember when the a scarred twisted wreck of a minion has survived the horrors and tortures you have inflicted on them enough to earn the rank of apprentice, embrace them with open arms, indulge in their curiosity when they want to exchange the jam for peanut butter even though the ritual dictates it should be strawberry, you never know what greatness might be summoned.