Thought Eater: Dread Chunks Orphan

Oh wait, here is an orphaned essay for the Thought Eater DIY RPG Essay Tournament. The competitor didn't show up due to a logistical error.

For people who are new here: this isn't by me, it's by an anonymous contestant assigned to write about the topic: Time Management for the contest.

We need to decide if the author goes to Round 2.

Anybody reading is eligible to vote for which one you like best and voting will be cut off once all the votes for all the first round Thought Eater essays are up...

If you think this one is good enough to go to Round 2, send an email with the Subject "UPCHUNKS" to zakzsmith AT hawt mayle or vote on Google +, if not, send an email saying "DOWNCHUNKS". Don't put anything else in the email, I won't read it.

DREAD CHUNKS AND SOME TRICKS

Dread occurs in slowed time fat with annihilation. This sick anticipation is felt when a moment feels dilated, possibilities morphing the homogenous pulse of event-event-event into a taut skin tearing in cracks. It is this skin that the DM stretches and plays like a drum.

I’ll argue that D&D time is felt and remembered in chunks. “Let's figure out how to kill this thing" is a chunk. "Let's talk to this queen to see what info or stuff she can offer" is a chunk. "So we raided the castle" is a chunk, too. Even combat is felt and remembered in chunks, not rounds; ask players to recap their last game and they'll say something like "We found this spinning ruined chamber, then we fought this curse-spewing orc, and the orc wrestled with Phil for awhile, then Charlene cut off its head with her Mug of Endless Misery." Finding the new dungeon is the biggest chunk of time, then fighting the curse-spewing orc is a chunk within it, and the smaller yet still distinct chunk of "Oh shit we almost died but then killed it" resides within.

So D&D time is felt and remembered in fractals. In memory, chunks of D&D time become bounded with their inciting event, complication, or resolution. While D&D sessions don’t tend to follow a classical three-act structure, remarkable chunks of time within them do. Without any of those three narrative-enriching steps, a chunk has no mnemonic; without a mnemonic, a chunk will be boring to inhabit. This bland chunk will also feel arbitrarily isolated—common evidence for this is a player looking dazed and saying, "Wait. Why are we doing this?" This reveals a potent DMing test: The day after a session, verbally summarize the session to someone else; if you have trouble recalling mnemonic-laced chunks, ask yourself what went wrong. The related heuristic: If a D&D session doesn't contain at least a couple good mini-stories, it was boring.

A DM sensitive to pace makes sure that players are aware of the chunk of time they're separating from the flow of the game. Player indecision is like a block of ice in a narrow river, growing larger with quibbling and stasis. If this indecision nears paralysis, or crystalizes from a post-snack crash, then it's the DM’s job to play Kafka and axe the fuck out of the ice (or blowtorch it). If a chunk of time feels solid and immovable, then the DM should make a decision, toss out another adventure hook, or deploy an event to make the players act (maybe by grabbing onto a new hint or from an NPC) or react (maybe by trying not to die). These chunks of time need to be both distinct and porous to new possibilities, info, and danger. But how is all of this different from simply saying that players remember memorable events? There is a shape to many memorable events in D&D (the chunk), and all recap-worthy events in D&D unite their players in both time and emotion (and so strand them together on a chunk).

So what’s an ideal flow of time in a D&D game? I like dread and horrible spectacle and my players like dread and horrible spectacle, so I make sure that at least one time-dilating roll occurs per session. "Let's see if it rips off a limb…", or "Roll to grab onto the ledge…", or "Make a very important Wisdom save…”, or “You hear a thick wet gnashing…” are verbal shortcuts into Dreadland. But for moments of dread to feel surprising and coherent, they must A) stand within, or start to isolate, a distinct narrative chunk and B) accrete from fate (i.e. from player action, tables, and the voice of the dice). A session of steady and minor thrills that seem natural to the circumstances of the game prevails over DM-manufactured Big Decisions (read: railroading) and exercises in demiurgical cruelty, at least for my players. Flow is subordinated to circumstances which rise from percolating consequences, but if my DMing is good, doggedly managing the flow of time of a session helps shape these circumstances.

So if my players are bored, an inciting opportunity will draft risky rolls—time gets juiced with adrenaline, and its river flows with risk and loot. If my players seem harried, their options frayed and characters maimed, an opportunity for in-game then meta-game rest turns time medicinal—time now doused with alkali, its river flowing with jokes and reorientation. When a game is good, the players feel in unison the composition and shade of benevolence/malevolence of time; when a game is bad, two players are trying to swim upstream while three are hunkered down on a dammed up chunk. This points to a mandate for DMs with split parties: Enthrall the inactive party into the flow of time of the active party.

D&D is a game of risks. If your character is devoured by an acidic sludge, there's no reshuffling the cards and dealing another hand. Your next 3d6 rolls create the grammar through which you engage the world that just killed you. The exploration and raconteur's presentation of these risks makes up D&D. If we assume that a skillful DM is already aware of what players want from their sessions, then the subtle manipulation of time becomes the most important of DM skills because you don’t get memorable events  without sharp consequences, surprises, and memorable boundaries. Time is the stuff in which all risks swim, so push your players in, foam it up white and deadly, and know when they need to grab onto an already-sweating glacier.

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Thought Eater: Emulation and Super-Intelligent Species

Here are the last two essays for the first round of the Thought Eater DIY RPG Essay Tournament.

Again, these aren't by me--they're by a pair of anonymous DIY RPG writers for the contest. 

Like yeasterday, each was assigned the same topic as a first-round opponent who didn't show up. So I paired two orphaned essays on different topics. We still have to decide which is better.

I have cleverly combine both topics in one image because
This Island Earth was originally a book.

Anybody reading is eligible to vote for which one you like best and voting will be cut off once all the votes for all the first round Thought Eater essays are up...

First One

If you like this one better, send an email with the Subject "EMULATE" to zakzsmith AT hawt mayle or vote on Google +. Don't put anything else in the email, I won't read it.

I like talking to a friend, my son calls Kügel, because he can’t pronounce his name well. He is a long-term philosophy student, gamer and avid reader of cheap fantasy novels. Today I talk to Kügel about “Evocation vs Imitation vs Emulation in adapting literary source material to RPGs“, my topic for the first round of the Thought Eater essay contest.

We have some difficulties defining the three terms, maybe because English isn’t our native language, maybe because we are not that smart. “To emulate“ seems to have two meanings.

1. imitate with effort to equal or surpass

If this essay is supposed to find out which of the three forms of adaptation is the best, emulation automatically beats imitation. Per definitionem, says Kügel.

2. The other meaning of “emulate“ is more interesting. A program can be emulated on a computer, it wasn’t originally written for. What the original program and the new program do looks very similar to the user, but the programs are actually different. Emulation in this sense works best when a text is adapted from one system to a similar system. The fairy tale “Hänsel und Gretel“ can be translated from German to English, for example. German and English are both languages. But can the story be emulated as a film? Or as an RPG?

At first, we understand the difference between evocation and imitation, but talking about it for a while, we get lost. To imitate means to copy superficial elements, all the details of a text. To evoke means to create a similar atmosphere, to write in a similar style, to copy essential elements only, like the more important parts of the plot or the structure.

“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre“ is a clever adaptation of “Hänsel und Gretel“. You have a group of young people getting lost in the wilderness. You don’t have two children abandoned by their parents. You have cannibalism, but no witch. You have an isolated house, but it’s not decorated with ginger bread. Both stories create a scary atmosphere.

Thinking a bit more about evocation, imitation and emulation, the lines get more blurry. Most texts which “evoke“ other texts also copy some superficial elements and emulation just seems to be a more accurate or better form of imitation, depending on how you define it. Kügel says the topic is unclear, because the terms we deal with are too similar. “And what is literary source material anyway?“, he adds. “The plot? The characters? The style of writing? The world the story creates?“

I propose to work with this: Playing an RPG, you can refer to a text in different ways. One extreme way is trying to imitate as many elements of the text as closely as possible. MERP springs to my mind. The other extreme way is to refer loosely to the text, in an abstract way, and only copy elements you find essential. “A Red & Pleasant Land“ does this. You could call both forms of adaptation “imitation“, the first one “emulation“, the second one “evocation“.

Kügel says: “Your essay will be disqualified. Let’s think about this in a different way. Try to be original. What works best for a GM?“ Kügel doesn’t like to work if he can avoid it. He says: “Which way needs less preparation?“

Well, if you are good at seeing the structure of a text, picking up elements that interest you, changing them, combining them with other elements and filling the gaps, a concept like “evocation“ works for you. If you are good at memorizing lots of information and reproducing it, a concept like “emulation“ works for you.

Kügel says: “Remember. ‘Opinions differ round-up‘, and ‘Well it’s a balance‘-style essays will be disqualified.“

Ok. Here’s another, more personal way to look at it. As an experiment, I wouldn’t mind adapting “Hänsel und Gretel“ as an RPG and stick to the original as closely as possible. Of course, the first thing that would get lost in the process is the plot of the fairy tale and with the plot a lot of other elements would transform. Being an improvisational effort of a group of people, RPGs open up texts anyway. Because of this, one could argue, when adapting a text, a concept like “evocation“ works best with Role Playing Games. It gives enough space to improvise.

But there is something else. I usually don’t feel too comfortable with people who stick to all the details of a given game world and obsess about it. I live in Germany, a country populated by square headed people.

“You said, we were playing ‘Hänsel und Gretel‘, so why did we encounter a wolf on the way through the forest? This is not ‘Little Red Riding Hood‘, is it?“

“It was just a wolf, an animal. It didn’t say anything. It ran away.“

“Why do we keep finding little bones and wooden objects where we left the breadcrumbs? Where is the gingerbread house? And why did Hänsel just disappear? That wasn’t supposed to happen. Where is the witch? I don’t like this.“


Second One

If you like this one better, send an email with the Subject "SUPERSMART" to zakzsmith AT hawt mayle or vote on Google +. Don't put anything else in the email, I won't read it.

Ways to handle super-intelligent monsters

When handling super-intelligent monsters, there are three different options you have: Either you are super-intelligent yourself and can just emulate them as a GM, they are incomprehensible horrors from beyond time and space, or you gotta fudge it. Let's examine:

If you happen to own an intellect vastly superior to that of your players, super-intelligent monsters shouldn't be much of a problem. Just stop dumbing them down. Stat them, let their plots evolve and then have eat all those puny and unworthy player characters, anticipating their every move, knowing their very thoughts. As I'm writing this with the time-frame of the Thought Eater Contest in mind, I'm assuming you are not a superhuman artificial intelligence reading this, so the assumption is that you are only somewhat smarter than your players at most. If you read this in the future and you are in fact, some scary digital construct, good for you.

If you plan your super-intelligent monster as an incomprehensible horror from beyond time and space, things are easy to wing: Just have it do random shit and then enjoy the puzzled looks in your players faces. If you can shup up about this method, they may do a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to making up motivations for your Fauxthulhu. It's like when Star Trek fans invent theories about how the teleporter works. But you need not care: The thing is so incomprehensible, it's crazy. One moment it's all about attacking, then it recedes, maybe distracted by something happening in another dimension or whatever. It's probably also about as much capable of communicating with the player characters, as we are capable of talking to ants so you can save yourself quite a lot of thought on that side as well.

Where the real beef is, is a monster that is super-intelligent but only to an extend as to make it still comprehensible and capable of interacting with the players on a base that's more than what we would do with bacteria. Say you're fighting some mastermind who does indeed have motivations that the player characters can wrap their minds around but at the same time runs countless machinations to thwart any opposition. Of course you cannot outthink your players at that level – if you could, you'd probably play with someone else or be busy exploring the very fabric of space or creating ageless works of art or whatever super-intelligent people do.

You're gonna have to fudge it and your players will have to accept that. Whatever the player characters will come up with – the super-intelligent monster will have anticipated it and prepared for it. Retroactively set up traps (wherever nobody stepped/checked yet – the SIM of course knew where they'd look first!). Have sure-fire spells and surprises fail. The only real way to overpower something that smart should be brute force (if at all possible) combined with a true element of chance. Your players rolling dice to find out what their characters are going to do next won't cut it – it's gonna have to be an element of chance in-game. So if the characters decide to flip coins and leave things up to chance, then they may defeat the super-intelligent monster. Or they will just have to swarm the thing – two dozen cats could, after all, conceivably overpower a human. If they'd cooperate that well.
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Thought Eater: Brilliant Forgotten Rules & Memorable Fights

This is a pair of new essays for the Thought Eater DIY RPG Essay Tournament.

If haven't been around the past month for this contest, these are not by me--they're by a pair of anonymous DIY RPG writers for the contest. 

In this case, each was assigned the same topic as a first-round opponent who didn't show up. So I am pairing two orphaned essays on different topics. We still have to decide which is better.

Anybody reading is eligible to vote for which one you like best and voting will be cut off once all the votes for all the first round Thought Eater essays are up...

First One

If you like this one better, send an email with the Subject "BRILLFORGOT" to zakzsmith AT hawt mayle or vote on Google +. Don't put anything else in the email, I won't read it.

The Worst Awesome Rule in Gaming

(Topic: A brilliant and forgotten RPG thing--and why it's brilliant)

At a certain time in my life, when we talked about what was right and wrong in role-playing, D&D was always our example of what was wrong. And in D&D, we found a rich source of everything we didn’t want from our gaming: drawn-out combats, uninspiring campaign arcs, meaningless social interactions, abusive players, abusive game masters.

This is the story of how a good friend of mine, let’s call him Gary, broke this trend and led to the discovery of the worst awesome rule in gaming.

Gary’s a guy who loves strange games and obscure rules. He’s got a passion for finding value in the things other people throw away or trashing the things everyone agrees are great. He’s the guy whose character decides to found a business in a monster hunting game, or whose plays the angry loner in a game about social interactions. Gary can be difficult.

But Gary also has an amazing instinct for finding awesome gaming things, and the awesome thing Gary wanted us all to play was Moldvay Basic Dungeons & Dragons.

This isn’t the story of how Gary got us to sit down and play D&D, or of how awesome it was, and of how we all got caught up in the old-school renaissance, or any of that stuff that you probably know all about.

What Gary taught us is that a classic game is usually classic for a reason. If you want to know why it’s a classic, you play it. Play it until something awesome happens. If you’re and analytical type, or a designer, you can take that bit of awesome apart, figure out what makes it tick, and put it a new setting somewhere. Or you can just enjoy it as it is, warts and all.

Which brings me to the worst awesome rule I’ve ever found. Actually, Gary found it. I don’t know what to do with this rule, so I’m giving it to you. It’s in James Ward’s “Metamorphosis Alpha,” un-mutated humans are natural leaders. To reflect this, they can roll the dice to make mutants do their bidding. Exactly how you use this isn’t explained in the rules.

This seems like a terrible rule to me. Are you meant to amass an army of mutants and conquer spaceship Warden? Can a human PC order around a mutant PC like a slave? Is there a saving throw? Isn’t this like saying humans are naturally superior to mutants, and isn’t this weird in a game that’s largely about mutants and mutant powers?

Maybe the builders of the Warden deliberately implanted a secret control sequence in the DNA of the crew and animal specimens to make them easier to command. Maybe a mutant scientist could reverse engineer this and use it against the humans or other mutants. Maybe there’s an antidote. Maybe we should all make mutant characters and fight against the imperialistic humans.

The best thing to do with this rule is just to ignore it. But I have a better challenge. Find a way to harness the awesome that’s hiding it in.

Second One

If you like this one better, send an email with the Subject "MEMENC" to zakzsmith AT hawt mayle or vote on Google +. Don't put anything else in the email, I won't read it.

Topic: Monster and Encounter Design (How to make it memorable? Is 'memorable' even the aim? How to make them good? etc)”

 “Memorable” isn’t something the GM can create, it’s something that happens in play. A throwaway scene that the GM just pulled out of nowhere to fill time can be the most memorable scene of a campaign, while an elaborately plotted scene can be forgotten by the next week. It’s all a matter of what the players grab onto during the scene, what they do with it, and sometimes what they roll. That being the case, I’m going to ditch the idea of trying to make an encounter memorable in favor of some nebulous definition of “good” that includes elements with a high potential for memorability (which, at least according to the Google Docs spellchecker, seems to be an actual word). 

For me, the thing that always makes a encounter seem “good” is context, which needs to work on a couple of different levels. On the meta level, it needs to feel like the encounter does something to move the story along, whether it’s giving the party information, moving them one step closer to the goal, or just helping the story flow by providing some tension when things get boring or a break in the action when things get too tense. If you’re watching a movie or TV show, you can often tell if a scene was just added to stretch out the run time, show off a special effect, or get Christopher Walken’s name on the poster, and noticing it makes the movie less enjoyable. With encounters that 

aren’t plot points, the biggest challenge is knowing when to include them and when to throw them out or hand wave them. If the party has already beaten the level boss, making them wade through a bunch of low-level cannon fodder that can’t hurt them and don’t add anything new to the story just makes it feel like you’re delaying their victory party unless you’ve specifically set up a “it’s getting back out that’s the hard part” situation. If the last hour of the game is spent in a series of boring fights with small bands of half-starved kobolds, the players are more likely to forget the really cool battle with the minotaur by the time the session’s over.   

The other level is the setting level: the encounter seems to feel like it belongs there. Things that are part of the story will already have reasons for being there, but even incidental or unplanned encounters (like surprise ninja attacks to get a group that’s dithering to start moving again or wandering monsters) need to feel like they make sense. If an encounter doesn’t seem plausible,  it’s going to feel like a plot point, so you need to be prepared for when the players realize that there traditionally aren’t any ninjas in Rivendell and start trying to figure out where the guys in black pajamas came from. Even if the players take a “eh, ninjas, what can you do?” attitude and don

’t pursue the anomaly, it doesn’t hurt to throw in something later that helps explain where it came from. The more encounters interconnect with one another and the setting, the more alive the setting will feel. 

My personal solution for making sure that encounters feel like they have context is not to think in terms of encounters. The typical gaming definition of “encounter”--when the players arrive at location X, event Y will happen--is static, which makes the world seem less like a living setting and more like a diorama that only comes to life when the players are there to see it. Instead, I try to think in terms of motivations and conflicts. Instead of sitting around waiting for the PCs to break into their house and kill them, the non-PC actors go about their lives (often clashing with one another) and react accordingly when the PCs inevitably mess up their plans. Even if you’re running a dungeon crawl where the “there are orcs in this room” model works a little better, it still helps to understand what life in the dungeon is like when there are no adventurers breaking up the place. If nothing else, it’ll help you spot design flaws that might kill the players’ suspension of disbelief, like the fact that the Displacer Beast in room 7 probably would have either starved to death or set off the spike trap at the end of the only hallway to room 7 long before the party ever got there. 

Context is also important in monster design in that the kind of monster you choose or create needs to fit the role you want the monster to play in the story. I usually break monsters down into a few broad categories: Cannon Fodder are nuisance monsters that are mostly used for pacing;  Mystery monsters are puzzles to be solved and can usually be killed fairly easily once you figure out how to kill them; Brutes are big and tough and scary but ultimately just meat that can be hacked apart; Tricksters screw with the character’s minds; Predators create tension by playing cat and mouse with the heroes; and Forces of Nature are things like giant monsters and zombie hordes that require a brilliant plan to defeat because taking them out by hitting

 them with pointy sticks is statistically improbable. Once you know why the monster’s there, it’s just a matter of adding bells and whistles and assorted pointy bits to make it seem cool. 

Ultimately, the key to creating good scenes is asking “why is this here?” or “why is this happening?” and then answering your own question. The more these answers interconnect with one another, the story,  and the setting, the more alive the world will seem. The more alive the world seems, the more the players will have to latch onto in order to create memorable scenes. A series of disconnected encounters with no context or narrative flow are likely to blend into one another, just like a series of random workdays when nothing interesting happens.
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Thought Eater: Keeping It Short

Alright: here's a pair of new essays for the Thought Eater DIY RPG Essay Tournament.

If you're new here, these are not by me--they're by a pair of anonymous DIY RPG writers assigned to write about: "Brevity, concision, keeping it short--when is it good, when is it bad, how has it been used well, or misused in the history of RPG writing, or GMing?" for the contest.

Anybody reading is eligible to vote for which one you like best and voting will be cut off once all the votes for all the first round Thought Eater essays are up...

First One

If you like this one better, send an email with the Subject "BREVITY1" to zakzsmith AT hawt mayle or vote on Google +. Don't put anything else in the email, I won't read it.

It's common sense that it is better to keep rules explanations concise. And there is a general trend towards minimalism both in DIY D&D circles and amongst indie/story game types. I can see in the abstract why this trend is beneficial: nobody wants an unwieldy rulebook, and looking at big, thick hardback tomes like the core rules for Pathfinder fills me a kind of existential despair - I not only don't want to invest the time in learning those rules; the thought that people have to learn them or choose to do so sends shivers down my spine. Let's just play.

And yet as I sit here writing this there is a loud voice in my brain which is saying, "You are a gigantic fraud and hypocrite, because in your heart of hearts you know that all your favourite RPG books are really fucking long." And it's true. Whether it's Cyberpunk 2020, or the Planescape boxed sets and supplements, Changeling: the Dreaming, Pendragon or even the rules for AD&D, the rule books that I love and hold dear are not brief or concise in any definition of the term. Changeling: the Dreaming is so grossly and irredeemably prolix that I'm still not sure how you even actually play the damn game.

Why the contradiction? As is often the case, an abstract truism doesn't hold true in concrete cases. Rules really ought to be concise. But conciseness is not inspiring, except perhaps if good design is what you are interested in. Passion is inspiring and passion is rarely brief. Passion splurges all over the page. It struggles to express itself except in very long-winded and convoluted terms. When somebody is passionate about something they can't help themselves talking about it, frequently and at length. So while I would not want to suggest that concise rulebooks are written by dispassionate people, I like the big, unnecessarily lengthy work of the hare-brained hobbyist who loves his game so much he can't stop writing it.

And since I need to be inspired in order to want to play a game, and since a passionate author is what is needed to be inspiring, it can only be the case that long-winded doorstops which you would have to be insane to write (think of the sheer effort that went into producing the 5th edition of Pendragon) are the type of RPG books I'll end up enjoying.

Second One

If you like this one better, send an email with the Subject "BREVITY2" to zakzsmith AT hawt mayle or vote on Google +. Don't put anything else in the email, I won't read it.

The Importance of Brevity


I am a big believer in “less is more.” Especially when it comes to games of the imagination. No matter what accessories, props, or premade adventures you are using - this is a game played within the imagination of your players.  A game of the mind.

Whatever they see in their mind comes from the information you give them. I submit to you that it's better to put the seeds of information in their head with a scalpel rather than a sledge hammer (OK, that analogy doesn't make any sense, but I think you see what I mean). Let me give you an example:

     You enter the room and see a table. On the table is a cat wearing spectacles. The cat appears to be reading a large tome.

That is a pretty brief description of a dungeon room. Now I didn't tell you how big the table was or what is it made of. I didn’t tell you what color the cat was, how fluffy it’s fur was, what style of eyeglasses was it wearing, or what kind of binding the tome had. If you asked all of your players to describe how they pictured the scene, each would have a different answer. I needed them to know that there was a table, a cat, and a book. That’s it. The rest was up to them. Imagination!

In addition to engaging the player’s minds, brevity allows the DM an incredible amount of leeway to create their world. I hate when I buy an adventure or setting and the descriptions are essentially a series of instructions that railroads the players to where the author wanted his story to end up. That is not gaming. The more information that is forced onto the player (or the DM), the less freedom they have.

Brevity also reduces the amount of prep needed to play. I really love the one page dungeon contests (www.onepagedungeon.info). Go grab a few of them, a monster manual, and some random tables and you can game for hours with less information than most DM screens have on them.

Ok, this is becoming a bit long in an essay about brevity so I will close by saying this: Whether you are creating content for a DM to use or presenting content to your players, only give them the briefest form of the information they need. Their minds will do the rest.
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Thought Eater: Skipping The Game

These are new essays for the Thought Eater DIY RPG Essay Tournament.

They are not by me--they're by a pair of anonymous DIY RPG writers assigned to write about: How to handle "skip-the-game" spells and effects e.g. Passwall, unlimited-use Flying, etc. for the contest.

Anybody reading is eligible to vote for which one you like best and voting will be cut off once all the votes for all the first round Thought Eater essays are up...

First One

If you like this one better, send an email with the Subject "SKIP1" to zakzsmith AT hawt mayle or vote on Google +. Don't put anything else in the email, I won't read it.

Skip-the-game spells and items are inherently worldbuilding effects. You can either plan for them ahead of time, or let them build your world for you. They raise the question of whether your gameworld has a magic ecosystem, and if so, what it looks like. Does unlimited use of powerful spells have in-world consequences? Does it bring the characters to the attention of other, potentially more powerful entities? If there are no consequences, you're setting things up for munchkinism, or at least logical inconsistencies. 

Take Passwall. How common is this spell? In a world where any jackass can learn Passwall, laws and wards to prevent its unlimited use will be commonplace. Or, if such spells are extremely rare, and thus un-warded-against, the PCs should have to work their asses off to get access to them. You only get to waltz past the warlord's castle walls if you've climbed the Mount Indomitable and exposed your body to the appalling fleshrazor frost while smoking the fabled lessa blossoms from a hooka made from the skull of a minor deity - simply having access to the spell implies months or years of in-game dedication and preparation. But if a powerful effect is easy to obtain but has few consequences, it makes the world a little less believable - like a world where anyone can pick a lock but no-one has invented deadbolts or security alarms.

So far, so easy - powerful magic should have costs and consequences. A strong thread in folklore and mythology is monkey's paw logic - powerful gifts tend to have strings attached, and rarely work out like people think they will in advance. The most obvious and probably least satisfying way to enact that is to have an equal DM reaction for every PC action. Maybe people who fly all the time tend to get attacked by manticores or snatched by rocs. This isn't very satisfying because it's so transparently a way for the DM to put brakes on powerful effects. 

A better path is to give powerful effects a spectrum of consequences, which might be good or bad depending on what the PCs do next. Don't just impose a curse or a combat, but make the consequence into an adventure hook. Maybe people who use Passwall a lot are actually poking holes between dimensions. As they go through the walls, they briefly manifest in some other dimension, and the inhabitants of that dimension react to those appearances as angelic or demonic visitations. Then when the PCs have to visit that dimension later on - possibly as a result of getting stuck there while attempting Passwall on a powerfully warded target - half of the residents try to worship them (which might involve 'liberating' their souls from their bodies) while the other half try to banish them to hell (which might mean sending them back to the Prime Material Plane with a funeral barge and a golem army). 

That's just one half-baked example. The larger point is that the consequences of powerful spells and items should be multifaceted. You don't have to think of all of the possible consequences in advance - feel free to riff off whatever weird coincidences come up in-game, to make the consequences feel more organic, and less like meta-game-y effects imposed from outside.

So: give powerful effects consequences, and make those consequences complex and multifaceted. Let them grow the story instead of restricting it.

Second One

If you like this one better, send an email with the Subject "SKIP2" to zakzsmith AT hawt mayle or vote on Google +. Don't put anything else in the email, I won't read it.

I play by the book. I seldom house-rule and when I do it's usually making up monsters and magic items. I also run my games letting the dice fall where they will, sticking to the results whether they suit my purposes or not: of course, this is all for D&D/OSR type games. It'd be different if it was a story-game, but I have hardly ever ran those.

This frequently puts me in a position, as a DM, of having a party of adventurers who are laden with useful magic items, spells and powers, all of the 'skip-the-game' type abilities. How do I deal with them? I let them use it. I fold into the game, make it part of the story. I let NPCs figure out the PCs abilities if they've been making a name for themselves, and if the NPC is intelligent and have their own resources, then I plan accordingly, but only if it makes sense within the game world that's been created.

At the moment, I have a party of Name-level PCs that have superb AC, excellent weapons and magic items, one member who can permanently fly, and a multitude of invisibility, haste rings, teleport helmets... basically, these adventurers can deal with anything I throw at them. The struggle then becomes a matter of creating obstacles that will challenge the party, despite the 'skip-the-game' abilities they have.

At that point, the good old dungeon delves becomes less interesting, the wandering monster encounters become nothing more than a stepping stone, a bump in the road from A to B. I don't bother with random encounters so much now, and the dungeons they delve are nothing like the catacombs or buried tombs that they once robbed. There are no more dragon lairs to intrude upon, no villages of orcs to slaughter. Other than a possible respire from other matters, these types of encounters are indeed best skipped.

Now the game becomes more about domains, politics, encounters with never before encounter monsters, events that reply more on the players/characters wits than their magic. Unlimited flying is not going to stop an army of 6,000 soldiers heading to raze your newly built domain; but it will help plan a course of action. That Passwall or Teleport spell isn't going to prevent court intrigue, but it will help break into secret rooms to acquire information that can be used to blackmail the count.

That's how I handle 'Skip-the-Game' effects then: by letting the players use whatever items, spells or abilities their characters posses, and just adapt the adventures they participate in, so that they remain engaged and challenged, and ultimately enjoy the game.

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Thought Eater: Evil

Good morning. How's your Monday? Here is a pair of new essays for the Thought Eater DIY RPG Essay Tournament.

These two entries aren't by me--they're by a pair of anonymous DIY RPG writers assigned to write about: The Use of The Concept of Evil In Games for the contest.

Anybody reading is eligible to vote for which one you like best and voting will be cut off once all the votes for all the first round Thought Eater essays are up...

First One

If you like this one better, send an email with the Subject "EVIL1" to zakzsmith AT hawt mayle or vote on Google +. Don't put anything else in the email, I won't read it.

The Use of the Concept of Evil in Games

The age-old fight of good versus evil, paladins versus demons, good deities of light versus twisted lords of the abyss. So over-used, so boring.

Let’s be just a bit honest here: that duality, as is presented in most fantasy settings, is not in any way a stimulating way of exploring human (or elven, or dwarven, or orkish) morality. It is, at best, a good shortcode to build a system around. Not a belief system, but a system nonetheless.

That being said, if we are able to ignore the greater ideological qualms of good versus evil, it could perhaps be better phrased as good means altruistic, evil means selfish (the Brazilian Portuguese translation of AD&D even uses those words to describe the “Neutral X” of both).

That is how I use it in my games: work for the greater overall happiness, even if you’re being a dickish utilitarian, you’re doing good deeds; work for your own selfish objectives, to get rich and powerful, you’re doing evil deeds. Gods are usually technically evil, even when they expect their followers to be good. But that’s all fluff, all in the backstage.

The actual use of that is: evil is a reward. Rather, getting to be evil without becoming seen as evil is a reward. In that way, I like to use it less like a moral compass and more like the L5R honour system: the altruistic things you do, the more selfish you can be without becoming driven (only) by your own greed, or at least being seen that way by society.

So, from the player’s standpoint, this is the view: Good or evil are really just opinions and propaganda, right? So as long as I keep them balanced, I should be great! I mean take Mother Theresa: seen as this beacon of good, even though her philanthropy only reached those who converted to her religion!

In-game, it might even end up leading to more interesting villains! It brings down the moustache twirling villain, who does stupid crap for the sake of evil, and in its place puts a much more interesting NPC, with strong motivations and that will stop at nothing to achieve them!

And because the ends don’t justify the means, at least in the public’s eye, the so-called heroic murderhobos end up having to play by the rules in order to not be seen as the villains themselves, unless they do enough good to allow them to use whatever methods are necessary to get the job done.

That’s the way I use evil: A social reward for good deeds. 

Second One

If you like this one better, send an email with the Subject "EVIL2" to zakzsmith AT hawt mayle or vote on Google +. Don't put anything else in the email, I won't read it.

The Other Evil

"The Other" is different from or alien to the self ... opposite to being "us". When used as a verb it means to label...and then exclude those who do not fit a societal norm. In geographic terms ... somewhere along the margins, where the societal norm does not reside. [​Paraphrased from Wikipedia​].

I.

It goes without saying that people, in general, conflate “evil” and “the Other” in real life all the time, and you need look no further than the comments section of any news article whose headline contains any of the following words: liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican, gun control, abortion, feminism, men’s rights, Islam, Scientology, Christianity, atheism...

II.

a) The orcs see that they’re clearly outmatched. They surrender. “Okay, we take their weapons and tie them up. What should we do with them?” They appear willing to negotiate with you, escort you around the area ­ “Orcs are evil. I think we should kill them.” They plead for their lives, they’ll tell you anything, please ­ “We can’t leave a bunch of witnesses behind us. Easier just to kill them.” Great, the party cleric just turned into the villain from an action film. “No, we’re the​good​guys.” I know. I know. “It checks out, we cast ​Detect Good ​and everything.”

b) The most prolific serial killer in human history barely broke a hundred kills. Jack the Ripper killed eleven people ​more than a century ago and people are still trying to solve that case. That’s not even enough to hit level two. “But he didn’t kill orcs.” Exactly.

c) “I cast detect evil.” Okay, yeah, he’s evil. “Excellent. I start cutting off his fingers until he tells us where his boss is.” Aren’t you supposed to be good? “​Chaotic ​Good. And you just said he’s evil, so it’s okay.” Right.

d) In Dungeons and Dragons, the conflict between good versus evil isn’t about morals, but eugenics; you don’t kill orcs because of what they’ve done, but because of what they ​are. “Are you saying D&D players are racists?” No, of course not, I’m saying that the primary antagonists are an expression of the Other: ‘evil humanoids’ (orcs, drow, goblins); enough like us to “know better” than to do evil yet different enough that they’re not really people e.g. we can kill them and take their loot without feeling guilt. The fear of like­us­but­not­like­us evil is the fear that drives racism. “I don’t think it’s okay to kill helpless captive orcs just because they’re orcs.” Okay, fine, but grant me that it’s ​more ​okay than killing helpless captive humans.

III.

a) “We tie his hands and feet, then I tell him I’m going to start breaking finders if he doesn’t tell us where his master’s lair is.” Okay, you win, I’ll tell you everything I know. “This is a black op. We can’t leave witnesses behind us.” No, please, I have a wife and kids. “Alright. I take his wallet, write down the address on his ID, and tell him that we’re coming back for his family if he crosses us.” Oh, thank you, I swear you’ll never hear from me again. “We cut him loose.”

b) “So anyone in this city might be a vampire, or working for the vampires, and they look just like us, except they’re stronger, and faster, and have access to way more resources.” Right, and they need to suck you dry to stay alive. Don’t worry, though, it’s only about 1% of the population.

c) “I don’t understand. Are you saying Night’s Black Agents appeals to the OWS crowd?” No, well, yes. The other that looks like us, that wears our skin and walks among us but ​isn’t us ­ this is the Other we fear the most. It’s why players in NBA spend hours planning their routes, establishing safehouses, eliminating their trails, ​hiding,​despite the fact that the game ​explicitly allows you to forego this ​with an in­game mechanic that lets you go “oh, I spent a point, we planned for that”. And of course by fear the most I also mean hate the most ­ which is why you might or might not spare the captive orcs (well, “orc farmers” or “orc midwives” have a shot, anyway, they’re ​humanized​) but no one lets the vampire go free. “Didn’t you lead with a question about OWS?” Right, of course, the point isn’t that rich people are vampires, it’s that we hate people who have more than us, for not doing the things (we say) we would do if we had that much, or are you telling me the vast global vampire conspiracy is ​poor?​Of course not, and this is the catch ­ take a minute, really imagine what kind of setting has a global conspiracy/network struggling to make ends meet ­ aren’t they the good guys?

IV.

a) “We can’t leave any witnesses behind.” The cultist of R’yleh makes horrible, gurgling noises. He might be trying to reason with you, if only you could understand what he’s saying. You all take sanity damage.

b) “They’re completely alien. They don’t think like we do, they don’t look like us. They’re far, far, away, but they’re coming. We don’t know when, but soon. When they get here, it’s over. We can’t stop them.”

c) Yes, I’m talking about the Chinese. “You already did a bit on racism and other cultures.” You’re not listening, the orcs are ​us​, they’re ​our culture, they’re the part of us we deny, the people who should know better in safe­to­murder packaging. Lovecraftian horrors ­ they’re the cultures we don’t understand, there are more of them than us by orders of magnitude and they live where we can’t/won’t and we can’t understand their language but they’re coming, the first wave is already here, they get stronger every day and our society is wholly unequipped to face them. “I’m Chinese.” No, not ‘Chinese people’, Jesus, I mean “​the Chinese”, ​forty years ago it was “the Russians”, and before that “the British”, I’m saying we’re Oceania and Eurasia is coming, any day now, and Eastasia is our only hope. “You’re not making any sense.” We are playing Call of Cthulu.

V.

a) Importantly, these are ​the ​same players. ​The party healer solves problems in D&D by kicking down doors and killing everyone on the other side, then spends weeks of game time in Night’s Black Agents hiding, designing safehouses, and meticulously planning a kidnapping only to let the target go once they get information out of him. As the hitman. We might have only two or three combats in an entire Call of Cthulu campaign, period.

b) Note that there is no ‘real’ e.g. mechanical game rule reason why players couldn’t just start kicking down doors and killing people in NBA, or planning the perfect heist across a half­dozen sessions in D&D. In fact, I’ve found players are actually in (significantly) more danger in the average 5e combat compared to NBA, even accounting for the fact that they rush into things more often.

c) The action, ​the action​, in all three systems is still about the struggle against evil; each of these games deals with a different type of evil, that is, a different part of “evil”, and each of these requires a different response. You don’t complain that Call of Cthulu doesn’t have enough action just because you aren’t killing dozens of starspawn every night, not because you can’t kill starspawn in Call of Cthulu but because that’s not how you fight an unknowable enemy from beyond our shores / stars and besides even if you did there are infinite more where that came f r o m . “ G o o n a s t a k e o u t ? T h e d r o w a r e r i g h t h e r e ! I c a s t ​F i r e b a l l . ​”

VI.

a) “Give me something gameable.” Not part of the essay prompt, but alright, bear with me one minute longer. These systems steer you ­ players and DM ­ towards certain styles of gameplay, certain story arcs, certain campaigns not by the rules but by the nature of evil they present. “D&D has vampires too.” Sure, but it never occurred to you to run ‘track down the vast global vampire conspiracy’ ​in D&D. “Well, NBA is designed for exactly that kind of game, why would I run it in D&D?.” Alright, so you own it, and I own it, but I bet most people who play D&D don’t, and it ​still never occurred to them.

b) “Something gameable.” Fine, here we go: ​change the nature of evil​. Give your D&D players a conspiracy to unravel. “All this build up for that? Boring. Lots of city adventures revolve around conspiracies.” Let me try again. Sit down with your D&D character sheets and ​play Night’s Black Agents, with the D&D ruleset. Do you understand? If you sit down with the same DM and the same players and run through the ​exact same adventure​, I swear to you, hand­to­God, the game goes in a completely different direction if ​it is understood that you are playing ​Dungeons and Dragons, Night’s Black Agents, or Call of Cthulu.​Moreover, this will happen ​even if you never roll any dice. ​It’s not, can’t be, the rules, but an implicit understanding of the nature of evil and, consequently, the rules of engagement.

c) I ran a session of D&D using ​Betrayal at House on the Hill and it was the single best session we ever had. “So what do we do?” The house is evil, and maybe one of you is too. Try and get

out. “What do you mean, the house is evil?” You hear footsteps coming towards you from down the hallway. “I run the other way.”

d) This only works/is interesting if it runs contrary to expectations e.g. you have a NBA adventure, a FASERIP adventure, whatever, ​in the context of your D&D campaign. You can, of course, run a whole campaign using a different paradigm of evil, but it won’t stand out, and another system might be better suited anyways.

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Realism (Thought Eater)

Here are a pair of entries in the Thought Eater DIY RPG Essay Tournament.

If you're new here, these are not by me--they're by a pair of anonymous DIY RPG writers who were both assigned to write about: Uses and Abuses of Realism for the contest.

Anybody reading is eligible to vote for which one you like best and voting will be cut off once all the votes for all the first round Thought Eater essays are up...

First One

If you like this one better, send an email with the Subject "REALISM1" to zakzsmith AT hawt mayle or vote on Google +. Don't put anything else in the email, I won't read it.

It's difficult to talk about abusing reality without first discussing the nature of reality.  That particular topic is very large and the range of approaches to it are very wide.  I will do my best to cut it up into some smaller and more chewable bites.  It's a bit of a rough draft, so please try to bear with me.  For the sake of getting to a manageable point, lets go ahead and assume that there are two basic types of reality.   

#1

There is essential reality.  This is an idea from the Greeks that eventually gave us modern physics.   Essential reality is the ground we stand on.  It is our planet going around a star, due to gravity which pulls various dusts and gasses into a warm ball.   It is the reason that rocks are hard, sunshine is warm, and the sky is blue.

This idea of things having an essential form works very well for describing the physical but it starts to break down when you deal with social reality.    Things like Justice and Happiness aren't concrete enough to pin down with this sort of thinking.

#2

There is a socially constructed reality.  Social constructivism is the most common approach for the modern social sciences to take when trying to suss out the nature of reality.  Humans use language to come to a consensus on things in the world around them.  The sky is blue instead of green, because some humans a while ago agreed on the set of criteria that make Blue blue, instead of Green. ( see example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ao_(color)  This approach is much easier to use when tackling topics that aren't concrete.

An example of abusing reality #2:

Sitting down at the game table is (as Ice-T accurately put it) "some of the most crazy, deep, deep, deep, nerd shit ever invented.", because we entertain ourselves by socially constructing a reality that is an alternative to the one we walk around in every day.   People outside of that social conversation have no idea who or what the fuck its participants are talking about.   If you show up to your family reunion and talk to your grandma about how a Glitter Boy's Boom Gun hits for 3D6x10 she will look at you (rightly so) like you're speaking a different language.

Within this abused reality, the participants in the social construction still have a very basic need to intellectualize and understand what exactly is going on.  If you tried to play a game where people pretended to be energy based life forms floating in the upper atmosphere of a gas giant, it would not go smoothly.  There has to be a baseline of realism for comprehension of the social reality within the game to be built up from.   You stand on the ground in the game, just like in real life.

This leads to the codification of storytelling, through a reality emulator.

An example of abusing reality #1:

Video games are a great example of a reality emulator.   To illustrate this point, I'll use the popular indy game Goat Simulator.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goat_Simulator

Go google up some short YouTube videos if you're unfamilliar.

So, in Goat Emulator the fun comes from the tweaking and abuse of essential reality.   The set dressing for the game is drably real.  There are gas stations with cars, suburban homes full of average citizens, streets paved with asphalt,... a goat.   Bland, bland reality.  Just like the stuff you see when you step outside.  The difference is very slight, and completely under the hood.   Physics in the game are just a little bit whacked.  That one change to a single part of essential reality takes a boring thing, and makes it immensely entertaining.

Game systems are also a form of reality emulator.

Just as video games have code working under the surface to generate a recognizable world, paper and dice games have their system.  Gravity causes falling damage.  You can die from drowning.  You can starve to death without enough rations.   The fun comes in the same way as the Goat Emulator.   Tweaking things here and there throws the participants off balance enough to make it fun.

The best example of abusing or tweaking reality inside of the paper and dice reality emulator is Magic.  Magic uses language, the tool of reality#2 to rearrange reality#1.  

As such, fantasy magic can act as a sort of social shorthand.  It can create spells that resemble other real things in a faster and simpler form.   A fireball spell in the game has much the same effect as dropping an incendiary grenade in reality, minus the factories armies and materials needed to explain the existence of an incendiary grenade.   A charm spell enthralls a character in much the same way as a charismatic leader gains converts, but without the time investment of multiple gradual brainwashing sessions.

The system you choose can give you a good grounding in simulated reality, either substantial or social and choosing how and where to abuse it will dictate, in part, the shape of the fun.

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Second One

If you like this one better, send an email with the Subject "REALISM2" to zakzsmith AT hawt mayle or vote on Google +. Don't put anything else in the email, I won't read it.

There is a reason that combat was originally written as an abstract idea in the beginnings of our great hobby.  Part of our job as grand schemers behind the screens is to paint a picture for our players.  To do this one must on occasion bend and break and sometimes completely alter the rules of the real world.  I must ask you to open your eyes and really see the world around you, for the first time. 

Take a coin out of your wallet, and drop it on the floor.  Keep your eyes open, and watch it fall.  How long did it take for the coin to hit the ground once it was released from your hand?  One second perhaps? Possibly two if you’re a bit taller than I.  Now swing an imaginary sword in a few daring manoeuvres, feinting a bit, and parrying.  We have been told in the past that there is a certain amount of time that is elapsed within a round of fighting.  If you watch a sparring matching between two professional fencers a inordinate amount of blows, glances, parries will happen within a very short time frame.  Relaying the above statement has taken me a bit of time to write correctly, however I've attempted to paint a picture for you.  Rather than confirm exactly how many times that you were in fact hit, or how many times you in fact missed within that obviously very short time frame.   

Below the balcony is a large hall occupied by your companions and vile monsters.  You decide to grab a rope swing it over around a chandelier at the centre of the room.  With one great throw you manage to hook the rope around, and position yourself to land into the midst of the fight.  Drawing your sword you call out to whatever gods are listening and jump down.  As you descend you hit a few monsters.  You tuck and roll, coming up about eight feet away from the chandelier, with one might heft you pull the chandelier down on to the monsters.  The very idea of the heroic deed is part and parcel of playing out our fantasy, the essence of role playing.  To water down the experience to a series of dice rolls, which take a lot longer than ten seconds seems like a waste of time.  For that matter a waste of dice rolling.  The above scenario was an abstract view of combat.  Granted the whole scenario could have been played out over a series of rounds and checks.  It can and should be played out with one roll, one round.  

Riding across an open expanse of a field, you see a lady in a red dress from far off.  Between the lady and yourself are hundreds of well-dressed Cats that look all very similar.  There are two ways to get through this.  We can proceed through the process of explaining every single step you take, everything you see, everything that you fight or evade.  What will also happen is that both of us will become bored with the never changing scenery, the obvious references to certain black cats that appear to look alike.  All in an attempt to make our way to the lovely woman in the red dress.  The other option is to tell a story.  What happened, when? Who? Where? Did She? Did they? Did you?  

The fantasy worlds that we inhabit and bring to life are inherently just that, fantasy.  From the sword fight to the hero saving his friends, to you riding across a barren expanse attempting to rescue the fair maiden.  All of these examples are based on a fantasy world, one that isn't always based on the rules of the real world.  Combat should never be an extended set of dice rolls; it should always be an abstract idea, brought about by great role-playing and descriptive enthusiasm. 

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