From the article archive
Writing Practice, Nov. 25th 2001
Explanation: Last Friday's column (Nov 23, 2001) was lacking in many areas. Just because this column is free is no reason for me to slack off on the quality. So you're getting a more indepth look at disease in RPGs as a way of making up for it.
Essay: Should you include disease in your campaign? Yes. Doing so would add to the depth and the versimilitude thereof. But before you do you need to answer a view questions.
1. What role will disease play in the game?
Will it be in the background? Something that gets mentioned every now and then, but which will have no real effect on the players?
Will it drive the campaign? In this case one or more diseases play a prominant role in the campaign. Everything that happens, everything the PCs do must take the disease or diseases in mind.
Is it simply a part of the PCs' lives? In this case disease is something you get, something your suffer from. A part of the environment, if you would. The party comes down with bad head colds, it's most likely because they were in contact with somebody with a bad head cold.
2. Will diseases be natural, unnatural, or some combination of the two?
Natural means that diseases are caused by pretty much the same things as diseases are in the real world. It could be an organism of some kind, a gene, something in the environment, a bad reaction by the immune system, or the lack of an important nutrient. Or a combination of the above. Some cancers are now thought to be triggered by an infection of some sort.
Unnatural means that disease is caused by somebody who wishes the victim ill. A god of disease, a spirit of fever, or a witch's malediction. (Obviously the last only applies if your campaign has evil witches.:))
A combination of the two indicates a world where malevolent types act to make disease more likely in an area or person. Such as, say, a spell that conjures up a swarm of flies which then get into everything spreading germs around. Or one that befouls drinking water, causing severe diarrhea in all who drink it.
3. How is disease treated? Where disease is caused by the ill doing of another, divine and/or magical intervention is usually needed. Though, for a change of pace, you may wish to have scientific cures for divine/magickal diseases. Where disease is natural, or some combination of natural and unnatural, then the treatments depend on whether one is doing a fantasy or non-fantasy game. In the latter case the treatments will usually be scientific, while in the former case treatment could be magickal or a mixture of magickal or scientific.
Let me explain the last. In a campaign's ancient period some wizard designed a spell to cure disease. Time passed, and with its passage scholars and researchers learned more about the nature of disease. With the increased understanding of disease, and of the various diseases going around, specialized versions of the original spell were designed. Each new spell able to cure a certain disease or class of disease, but not disease as a whole. The great advantage of the specialized spells being that they are easier to learn and often quicker to cast.
4. How is disease viewed in society? A society superstitious about disease will deal with it differently than one with a more rational approach. Quite often how a specific disease is viewed will depend on the amount off knowledge available concerning the ailment, how effective treatment is, and the sort of stories going around about it.
Related to the above are so called alternate treatments. What sort of alternate treatments are available to the society. Do they work or not? If they do work, why hasn't the orthodox medical community adopted them. Please note that alternate medical treatments in a campaign can be a mix of those that do work in some manner, and those that don't.
5. Last, but certainly not least, how are the ill treated in the campaign? Is it with revulsion? Or sympathy? Is it a mixture of the two, or does it depend upon the disease and the specific society?
End Note: Yes, adding disease to your campaign does add more work. At the same time, it can make life more interesting for your players. Best of all, it can provide the GM with a convenient excuse to have the PCs hole up for a week or longer.:)
Not to mention the plot hooks, and the adventures based around an attempt to get ahold of some rare ingredient, the leading expert on the ailment, the only person with a copy of the only spell able to defeat that particular disorder.
So add diseases to your campaign and see how a deadly infection can liven up the game.
Coming Up: A History of Psionics (really and truly) could get posted today. Another attempt to make up for last Friday. On Monday I'll probably post something about working magick and its effect on society. See you later.
Alan
Essay: Should you include disease in your campaign? Yes. Doing so would add to the depth and the versimilitude thereof. But before you do you need to answer a view questions.
1. What role will disease play in the game?
Will it be in the background? Something that gets mentioned every now and then, but which will have no real effect on the players?
Will it drive the campaign? In this case one or more diseases play a prominant role in the campaign. Everything that happens, everything the PCs do must take the disease or diseases in mind.
Is it simply a part of the PCs' lives? In this case disease is something you get, something your suffer from. A part of the environment, if you would. The party comes down with bad head colds, it's most likely because they were in contact with somebody with a bad head cold.
2. Will diseases be natural, unnatural, or some combination of the two?
Natural means that diseases are caused by pretty much the same things as diseases are in the real world. It could be an organism of some kind, a gene, something in the environment, a bad reaction by the immune system, or the lack of an important nutrient. Or a combination of the above. Some cancers are now thought to be triggered by an infection of some sort.
Unnatural means that disease is caused by somebody who wishes the victim ill. A god of disease, a spirit of fever, or a witch's malediction. (Obviously the last only applies if your campaign has evil witches.:))
A combination of the two indicates a world where malevolent types act to make disease more likely in an area or person. Such as, say, a spell that conjures up a swarm of flies which then get into everything spreading germs around. Or one that befouls drinking water, causing severe diarrhea in all who drink it.
3. How is disease treated? Where disease is caused by the ill doing of another, divine and/or magical intervention is usually needed. Though, for a change of pace, you may wish to have scientific cures for divine/magickal diseases. Where disease is natural, or some combination of natural and unnatural, then the treatments depend on whether one is doing a fantasy or non-fantasy game. In the latter case the treatments will usually be scientific, while in the former case treatment could be magickal or a mixture of magickal or scientific.
Let me explain the last. In a campaign's ancient period some wizard designed a spell to cure disease. Time passed, and with its passage scholars and researchers learned more about the nature of disease. With the increased understanding of disease, and of the various diseases going around, specialized versions of the original spell were designed. Each new spell able to cure a certain disease or class of disease, but not disease as a whole. The great advantage of the specialized spells being that they are easier to learn and often quicker to cast.
4. How is disease viewed in society? A society superstitious about disease will deal with it differently than one with a more rational approach. Quite often how a specific disease is viewed will depend on the amount off knowledge available concerning the ailment, how effective treatment is, and the sort of stories going around about it.
Related to the above are so called alternate treatments. What sort of alternate treatments are available to the society. Do they work or not? If they do work, why hasn't the orthodox medical community adopted them. Please note that alternate medical treatments in a campaign can be a mix of those that do work in some manner, and those that don't.
5. Last, but certainly not least, how are the ill treated in the campaign? Is it with revulsion? Or sympathy? Is it a mixture of the two, or does it depend upon the disease and the specific society?
End Note: Yes, adding disease to your campaign does add more work. At the same time, it can make life more interesting for your players. Best of all, it can provide the GM with a convenient excuse to have the PCs hole up for a week or longer.:)
Not to mention the plot hooks, and the adventures based around an attempt to get ahold of some rare ingredient, the leading expert on the ailment, the only person with a copy of the only spell able to defeat that particular disorder.
So add diseases to your campaign and see how a deadly infection can liven up the game.
Coming Up: A History of Psionics (really and truly) could get posted today. Another attempt to make up for last Friday. On Monday I'll probably post something about working magick and its effect on society. See you later.
Alan
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