OCs against Consumer Culture

Blorthax the Lizard Wizard (art by
@fitivarka.bsky.social)

I have a stack of books and zines on my bedstand, things I am currently reading by cycling through or intending to get around to soon. I've always been like this, a bit ADD and curious about more than I have the ability to actually sit down and read. In the last 12 years that I have been rediscovering TTRPGs and getting into the indie scene, TTRPG products have taken up more and more of this stack. It seems like there is an endless stream of must-have instant classics being released at all times. A recent Polygon article states that tabletop board game crowdfunding is loosing steam. The same does not seem to be true for the tabletop role-playing game world. The new Ultraviolet Grasslands boxed set seems deluxe as can be with custom dice, and Tomkin Press's latest provides options for four books and two decks of cards. If TTRPG crowdfunding is flagging, there is still enough momentum to propel our little cottage industry well into the future. 

I try to keep up with what I can, helplessly compelled to buy all these exciting new products. I probably finish one or more adventures or other TTRPG books a month, and this content inevitably shows up in my games in some form or another. I have three different groups I play with that are all curious to try different games and ideas, although a lot of people are also attached to the longer committed campaigns. I think the appeal of these longer campaigns is that players get the time to build an emotional connection, or at least resonance with their fictional characters. This is what Levi Kornelson calls Kenosis in his Manyfold Model. Characters pass into the realm of familiar, and players become comfortable inhabiting characters and interacting with one other, fleshing out their own unique rapport and shared history. This kind of play might be supported within an active zine-buying hobby, where the GM focuses on only adventure modules, rejecting products that would present too drastic of a shift from the game in terms of system or setting. I know many tables actually do this successfully, but for me and for some that I know, the depth and breadth of cool stuff being made destroys any chance to only bring zines to the table that won't break the tone of the game. It seems that overall, too healthy of an interest in the indie TTRPG scene means it's impossible to have a long, epic campaign with a familiar cast of well-worn heroes. 

Or does it.

The OC or "Original Character" is described by the Retired Adventurer blog as: 

"OC basically agrees [...] that the goal of the game is to tell a story, but it deprioritises the authority of the DM as the creator of that story and elevates the players' roles as contributors and creators. The DM becomes a curator and facilitator who primarily works with material derived from other sources - publishers and players, in practice. OC culture has a different sense of what a "story" is, one that focuses on player aspirations and interests and their realisation as the best way to produce "fun" for the players."

 The OC having their own backstory is not central to the point I am trying to make here. The important part is that the OC is the player's creation that transcends the game. An OC can appear in any system, in any setting, in any time period. Blorthax the Lizard Wizard knows no boundaries, surfing from table to table unfettered, slaying goblins in Mork Borg one day, and blasting aliens in a Starfinder game the next. OCs take on a sort of quantum nature, where alternate reality instantiations of them could multiply endlessly across groups of players.

Although OCs are thought of as a modern phenomenon, I think there are traces of similar characters that go back to the early days of the hobby. People brought characters from Gary Gygax's house to Dave Arnesen's to play in their respective dungeons, and since high lethality games call for regarding characters as replaceable pawns, created the same or similarly named characters over and over. 

The point for me in bringing this up, is that here we have two contradicting strains of play that seem to develop together because of their difference, and perhaps even depend on each other in a weird way. Not all differing styles of play are mutually exclusive. Some are even symbiotic.

Sandboxing Volturnus 2: The Octopods

Preamble 

In continuing my project to rewrite the classic Star Frontiers adventure as a sandbox, I am now moving on to one of the planets many sentient species. In the original series, there are two main entries for each species, one to introduce them, and another for a quest to win their support in a climactic finale. 

The first species encountered are a desert dwelling, dinosaur riding species of octopii that have an Avatar-like 9th tentacle that can be used to mind meld with other living creatures, including their dino-mounts. In the linear adventure narrative, these octopods rescue the party soon after their starship crashes, and together they set out on a journey to their holy city, where the players can partake in a religious ceremony doing battle with an ancient genetically engineered beast to gain favor with the tribe. Fighting the beast is part of the agreement for receiving help, so this is a section of the railroad that I am trying to unwind and turn into a sandbox. On the way back to the holy city, the party becomes separated from their guides while traversing a dangerous underground cave system/dungeon due to a cave in, and must forge on through the railroad alone. 

In their second entry in the adventure series, the party needs to once again gain favor with the tribe, this time to convince them to join an epic battle for the fate of the planet. In the second appearance, the players must once again win the favor of the tribe, this time by finding another one of these genetically engineered beasts to capture it and return it to the tribe. The two octopod quests are so similar that they are a bit boring, but I can try to imagine a greater cosmology surrounding these beasts. 

Octopods Culture

Octopods worship an essence that permeates all things in this world. Objects and individuals are merely differentiated expressions of the underlying essence. When a living thing is born, they emerge from the great world essence, and when they die, they return to it once again. Their worldview is tightly bound to their ability to use a specialized ninth tentacle which allows them to connect to nearly any living creatures nervous system via spinal cord and communicate with it telepathically. Because of this bond, they feel a great sense of responsibility to the living creatures of their world. Among the creatures they commune with, they have a very close relationship with their dinosaur like mounts called striders. Striders often play roles in their many religious ceremonies and athletic competitions. 

There are however, many genetically engineered creatures left behind by a great and malignant race of worms who reject communication with the octopods, and are thus seen as outside the great world essence. The worms set these creatures loose on their planet long ago in an attempt to conquer it, though they were driven away in a great and fabled battle. In remembrance of this history, the octopods have also taken it upon themselves to hunt these genetically engineered creatures. In particular are the manglers, a quadrupedal death machine that can shoot poisonous barbs from their tails. Many octopod ceremonies center around the capture and ritual combat with manglers. In order to gain favor with an octopod tribe, outsiders may have to participate in one of these mangler related ceremonies to prove their worthiness. Despite being wary of outsiders, they extend mutual aid such as water and shelter from extreme desert weather to all living creatures that can commune with them via ninth tentacle link. This includes almost all living creatures in space except those genetically engineered by the worms.