Recruiting

 

A Few Recipes for Running the Game

This is for M & R.

Quite a long time ago, within my first few years of DMing, I stopped requiring players to map dungeons as they progressed.  The mapping required a fair bit of game time (even one minute was more than the process was worth), while I found the prospect of refusing to let a party leave a dungeon because they "didn't know the way" a somewhat petty attitude.  Given that my dungeons were fairly monster heavy an that there were bound to be bodies, bloody stains, bits of broken tools, footprints in dust and numerous other fairly obvious clues that would accumulate during the process of getting in, it seemed reasonable to assume the way out would be obvious.  Most of these signs would still be present days, even weeks after the party's entrance, where as most of the time they'd enter, look around and leave within the space of an hour or two.  Thus, I ditched the dungeon mapping, telling my party that, "Oh sure, you're mapping, but let's not waste game time on it.  Just assume you know where you are and that you can get anywhere you've been before, presuming you don't fall down a well and find yourself unable to go back that way.

Problem solved.

Later, when my combat system evolved to where I was creating maps on publisher (I was 16 years a DM before publisher became readily available), these became the "board" for the players to move around on, rather than a physical game map that would be scrubbed clean.  The dungeons were more or less permanent files.  This meant that I was effectively creating the party's map, since they could see plainly on the screen where they were and how many hexes separated one door or room from another.  Thereafter, the whole "mapping" thing turned passe.

With regards to worksheets and checklists, which are discussed in my book, How to Run.  I've spoken about them here.  The idea for these comes from industrial procedures, specifically firefighting.  There, a "worksheet" is a document or form used by officers (like incident commanders or sector officers) to record, track and manage critical information during an incident. That might include listing units on the scene, their assignments, status updates and important time stamps (like entry/exit times for crews in dangerous environments).  I translated this as "what are we going to do" for D&D, not for the players, but for the DM — as in, who are the players going to fight, what treasure is going to be found, what do I want to be sure to describe first when players enter the room, that sort of thing.  Effectively, "what work am I going to do as a DM when the game starts?"

A "checklist" for a firefighter would be the things they needed to know pre-arrival: essentially, stuff done at the firehous, such as verifying that every truck is fully loaded with all the equipment it should include (we won't have time when the bell rings), that sufficient personnel are physically on call in the firehouse... and ultimately, before we start fighting the fire, is the "scene" safe.  Is the power of the burning building turned off, is the traffic controlled, have we identified all the hazards, do we know how many people are in the building.  For D&D, I translated this to the stuff the DM needed to have on hand before the game started: is the map of the dungeon made, is that rule drawn up, do we remember where the players were at the end of the last session.  I attempted, for a time, to manage this by keeping a calendar of the players' activities, so that I could check that list and see what had happened and therefore how to move forward.

For How to Run, this was an attempt to correct a problem I knew that many DMs have, but not one that I have.  After publishing the book, for about two years I struggled to keep my lists up to date, after having never used them before.  Surprise... I couldn't.  It wound up that most of the information I was tracking simply didn't matter, while repeatedly I would fail to write down something that did matter.  With more practice, with more diligence, I'd have eventually established a discipline to manage this better, as it's the sort of thing that requires practice.  I did not do that.  I went back to my old ways of trusting my memory and letting the players correct my errors, as I've always found my parties capable of group thinking a memory that was needed.  I am well aware that many DMs cannot do this, and furthermore, cannot rely on their parties to be honest with them.  I would not have dishonest people as players or as acquaintances.  I don't understand those who tolerate such people.

As such, when preparing a session, apart from actual props I need (and much of the time, because I draw these quickly on computer, at pictionary speeds, I can do this IN game), I prepare by lying down and thinking.  Sometimes I think in the bath, or in a shower, or while I walk.  It's my habit to sketch out whole books in my mind and keep that information, without the need for a memory palace; an upcoming D&D running is child's play.

That leads into player agency.  The level of freedom I espouse goes more or less like this:  You're in a town, you have no specific role to play or service to perform. There are no expositional NPCs telling you things you need to know.  There are no ready prepared dungeons or adventures.  What do you do?

Quite often I've been told by DMs that they just can't make a party understand this.  That the party usually ends up doing nothing, because they can't think of anything, or the DM has to break down and give them something to do, usually as a matter of desperation.

I suppose this is possible.  I can't imagine it, myself.

I have given this a fair bit of thought and have come to the conclusion that the DM is the problem, but not in the sense that the world isn't open enough.  It is, rather, that the world is in a steady state of limbo.  It's not moving.

Suppose I have a group of players and, like the complaint goes, they can't think of a thing to do.  This usually requires certain assumptions that don't apply in my world, because of the way my character background is designed.  In my game, the player doesn't "choose" their past. It is given to them, just as the reader's past is given to the reader: what parents you had, where you were born, your ability to afford school, your personal emotional, intellectual of physical gifts, what have you.  Usually, someone winds up with a mentor who happens to be connected to a manor farm, a ship, a guildhouse, a barracks or some such, so that the players can just walk down to the barracks, talk to Roy, find out what's doing... and as DM I can invent a "job" on the spot for the players.  "We're sending a recruiter out into the boonies to gather up a few farmboy commoners to come in and get trained for the war that's starting up; why don't you go with him?"  Sure, says the party, they go out, then I can have them run across something in the "boonies" as they're out there now and it's semi-wild.  They meet some bandits, they fight a few wolves, they stumble across a path and wonder where it goes, etc.  The party "invents" the adventure: they took themselves to the barracks, they said yes when plain, ordinary work was offered.  The party "invents" the adventure by following the path they find.

But let's say we have none of that.  We just have a party, no consistent background, we've mysteriously decided to let them retcon their own lives, and now they're here at the inn doing nothing but going round robin, "I dunno, whatta you wanna do?" "I dunno, whatta you wanna do?"

While they're doing this, what's the game world doing?  Just sitting there?

Apparently.  Which confuses me.  I assume the DM thinks, "If I give them an adventure, then that's not Alexis's agency, so... what am I do to?"

For heaven's sake, at least let time pass.  "Okay, you do this and three days pass."  The players still fumble around.  "Okay, three weeks go by."  Still the players hang around, confused, like sheep in a field.  "Okay, three months have just gone by.  You and you, adjust your character ages up by a year.  Your birthday just went by."

But granted, okay, maybe that's not enough for some people.  Maybe it's necessary to say, "Gareth dies of old age; the rest of you outlive him. What do you want to do now?  Wait for Brynneth to die?"

I'm joking.  Honest, I'm joking.  There are better ways.

Two days of the party moping around, wouldn't it make sense for a bartender, a cook, a constable, the guy who delivers the beer, ANYONE, to just say, "For the love of kittens, don't just flippin' sit there!  Why the hell don't you get out of town and take a walk.  Your legs work, don't they?"

The wench comes to clean the table.  "I just don't understand these adventurer types," she says, dousing the table and rubbing it clean.  "Laziest damn people I ever saw.  You'd think there were problems in the world waiting to be solved.  You'd think there weren't people getting driven outta their homes.  You'd think an isolated farmhouse never was burned down by orc raiders.  I got no respect for adventurers, and that's the bloody truth.  No respect at all.  Layabouts, that's what they are.  Ain't worth the pot they piss in."

AND SO ON...

Next, a child comes into the bar, looks up at the big tough fighter and says, "My papa says you're a coward.  Are you a coward, mistah?"

In this world that we live in, there's bad things going on all the time.  But we don't gird up with a sword or a pistol and fix them, because we pay taxes for the military and the police to do that for us.  For us, everywhere there's people, it's occupied in some way or other.  A medieval fantasy world isn't that fortunate.  There's always some place where there's no army or constables to pay to keep the peace.  There's always some place where, as the players dicker about "what to do," innocent people are trying to hold onto what they have against all sorts of monsters and wildlife.  What we as DMs need to do is clue the players in about this.  These aren't "rumours."  And they're not something the players should have to ask to know.  They've lived here their whole lives, just like the bartender, the wench and the kid.  They should be able to say to the DM, "where is oppression taking place?"  And the DM ought to be able to answer about five or six places within about ten days walk.  Or the party can just get off their rump and follow the most basic advice:

"First, I'm gonna deliver this case to Marcellus, then basically I'm just gonna walk the earth. You know, like Cain, in Kung Fu, walk from place to place, meet people get in adventures."

It's not rocket science.  If they don't get out and walk, if they don't move, they can't see things, they can't meet people, they can't get into adventures.

The real trick, though, is not this. This is the impetus.  The trick is not come up with something for them to do right now.  The trick is to come up with five things for them to do.

"Yep.   You just follow this road, it'll take you to Perspicacity all right.  There's a point out there, that's usually where the mermen appear; long about the beach there.  You'll know the beach, it's got at overhang a' land above it, upon which the abandoned monastery sits.  Kinda spooky place that, I wouldn't go there, not if you're smart.  Now, when you're on the road, watch out for Brutus.  He's a member of the king's guard, but he goes rogue a lot of the time. Bullies people, so watch out for him. And when you get down to the stone in the road — great big thing, twenty feet across.  Anyway, when you get to it, go left.  You don't want to go right.  Go right and you'll find the road that looks good when you start disappears out from under your feet after a couple miles— and after that, you'll run into a outlaw band that'll chop you up good and proper; about half of them's orcs, too.  Folks say they come down from some village that's up in the mountains, 'bout twenty miles from here.  So yeah, go right when you get to the rock.  Shouldn't have any problem once you get to Perspicacity.  Folks there's good people.  Good luck."

You gotta think about the world that way.  Every problem's got more problems, and those problems have problems, and as you go past those you come to bigger and bigger problems.  Sooner or later the party's got more things to handle than they can take a stick to, while the DM doesn't have to invent "adventures," but rather just "what would logically be there and how many orcs would it include.  That kind of thing.

Anyway, that's how I translate players from pre-fabricated adventures to agency.  I hand out a good helping of there's problems in them thar hills, then I pour a gravy full of "this is more than you can handle" on top, mixed in with "folks'll be so grateful if you live."  See the hills with treasure and watch the levels grow.  That's essentially it.

'Course, if you can't think of a sufficient number of problems for the players to deal with, well... it must be nice to live in a world where no one suffers, nothing ever goes wrong, no one exploits anyone else and power isn't a thing people crave.  I've never been there, so I don't know how to run that as a game world.

Hope that helped, that answered the questions being asked.  I'm always here for more clarity, if you want it.  That goes for everyone else listening.

The Campaigners

I still don't know why people never responded to these.

But they didn't.

Hm.  Wanted to see if I could still make one.  This is new, tonight:

This Week's Wiki

Come on and support my Patreon, knowing you'll get an updated list of new content nearly every day.

• Mage Sage AbilitiesSavanna (range)
• Talon (attack)
• Leader
• Machinate (sage ability)
• Navigation (sage ability)
• Occultism (sage study)
• Palaeolithic Period
• Undead
• Very Cold Conditions
• Warhorse Training (sage ability)
• Abbot (title)
• Number Appearing
• Baking Conditions
• Canine Handling I (sage ability)
• Daredevil (sage study)
• Gate (spell)
• Hand (sage study)
• Egyptian History
• Falconry (sage study)
• Open-field Farming
• Identify Amphibians & Reptiles (sage ability)
• Judge Belief (sage ability)
• Kobald
• Leucrotta
• Élan (sage ability)

The Empty Page (video)

A different take on an earlier writing essay:

https://youtu.be/Wl2h0KlOoV4?si=gmg4TG5KolscRPcT

See it, hit like please, much appreciated.  Hope you enjoy the visuals.

The Empty Consequences of Glamorous Writing

For shorthand, let's call the moment, "car-off-a-cliff"... the split-second, disastrous consequence when every plan, every hope, every possible reward, is now plummeting to an irretrievable death. Writers dream of such moments, for it gives us a chance to turn a story on its head, to surprise and shock the reader — and to invest the remaining characters with an opportunity to be devastated, resilient — all those great things that seem to make a story meaningful. But while the moment is a great twist... is it a good idea?

Many include such things in their books for the sake of spectacle. We're encouraged to do it; sometimes we're shamed if we don't do it. But there are consequences to such plot points that many don't consider. To begin with, much of the momentum, character and anticipation is cut off, like a light switch... though it's of necessity that we make everything up to the point before the cliff as real and believable as possible. Readers invested in the plans we've laid out, who want to know the success of those plans, will feel cheated when all that is ripped to tatters by a cheap, perhaps gratuitous-looking plot device. Up until then, if the readers are with us, they've listened to the hopes and expectations of our former, now-dead characters... and as a reward for that, we've swooped in, slapped them across the face and killed the likeable characters we've built for what might reasonably be seen as no good reason. Think of the scenes now made redundant by the car's flight. Consider how they'll look to a reader wanting to read the story again — how hollowed-out, since it all comes to naught. In some cases, scenes will look deliberately designed to pull the reader's chain; in others, that the scene need not have been written at all.

Continued:

https://alexis202.substack.com/p/the-empty-consequences-of-glamorous

Writing Without Looking

This blog is running behind the number of substack articles about writing, so I'm going to fix that.  I'll be posting one a day until we're caught up.

Where writing is concerned, we can easily spend years discussing specific situations, how they might be introduced and managed, the importance they bear regarding a larger narrative, mistakes made, poor judgment, assumptions, writing strategies... and so on. The number of directions we might take in introducing two characters to each other would allow us to write not one article on their meeting, not two, but really as many as we might choose to write. Writing is fractal. Any narrative moment can be woven into a world of intention, technique and consequence. Writing itself is a dynamic and inexhaustible field... limited only by our willingness to look the beast in the eye before flinching.

Let us assume that we've chosen to introduce two characters to one another as a love interest — which I choose specifically because while the film rom-com genre is in its death throes, erotic fiction is surging. It really doesn't matter what traditional writing trope we might begin with: the introduction of an expert, such as the "detective"; the death of a character; the spiral into disconsolation at the end of a romance. Yet I'm going to choose this, because in the previous essay, we brought it up as one way we might start a novel.

Continued:

https://alexis202.substack.com/p/writing-without-looking

Solve it Through Writing

When teaching others how to write, giving an example of our own work is the third rail. Doing so invites distraction. Instead of demonstrating the desired principle, the presentation of work itself is questioned, picked apart and criticised. The broader lesson is forgotten. This is made worse in that a sentence or even a paragraph of writing rarely stands sufficiently on its own to impress — especially if we're discussing fiction, as opposed to academic or scientific writing. It is for these reasons that creative writing teachers avoid demonstrating their work in any way, shape or form. The counter to this is that many such teachers are published authors... and that if the student wants a demonstration, the teacher's book can be purchased.

This restraint, however, has led teaching the practice into a swamp. Forced to lay out "principles" rather than hard evidence, advice has long been mired in what not to do, what isn't good writing and what techniques don't work... while the reverse is a malodourous concatenation of advice like "just write," character templates, three-act arcs and a plethora of other process-driven techniques that do not address the grounded substance of actual language, sentence-by-sentence communication and word choice. We dare not say, "choose this word," because it beckons a rush of voices telling us we're wrong, or that another word is better.

Continued:

https://alexis202.substack.com/p/solve-it-through-writing

This Week's Wiki

For those not following me on Patreon, this is a list of adjusted or rewritten Authentic Wiki content compatible with 1st edition D&D, or merely of interest, updated in the last week.

• Bailey Hamlet
• Dagger (weapon)
• Efreeti
• Acid-based Attacks
• Normal Fire
• Sword (weapon)
• Venom (substance)
• Abbey
• Facility
• Gain Proficiency (sage ability)
• Icy Conditions
• Koalinth

More Than a Character

To give a character depth, writers imagine that the best strategy is to give them a deep, abiding trauma. We use this approach to vitalise them; to enrich and make them memorable. And we suppose, because they've experienced an awful, often staggering event in their lives, we use it to explain the character's motivations. This, we say, is the burden they're carrying; this is the reason they act as they do. We've seen this writing strategy used in hundreds of stories, so we believe in it. We think it works. But it doesn't. Not really.

A character that has suffered upheaval is unquestionably more interesting. As people, we are defined intensely by the bad things that have happened... but what is more important than the upheaval is not what it motivates us to do each day — but how we got past it. How we grew. Meaning is not discovered in the horrible thing itself and its imperative... but in how we've risen above the horrible thing by strength and will, thus redefining ourselves. This makes a far stronger, far more relatable character than those personalities who never seem to get over anything.

Continued:

https://alexis202.substack.com/p/more-than-a-character

Abkhazia

Feeling better, but haven't gotten myself into a place where I'm banging away at the wiki, not yet.  Instead, yesterday I spent time working on a map of Abkhazia, found at the bottom of the wiki page.  For those who don't know, this is on the east end of the Black Sea, the northern edge of what was ancient Colchis.  I'll add the map here, too:

Today is also my day for publishing another essay about writing, so I'll get on that.

Getting Your First Book Published

Turns out, I'm getting quite a lot of traffic on substack from folks here going there using the link to these articles.  Thank you for that; I assume you're interested in writing advice.

I've been thinking much about the subject and about the effort to remain positive, to not tear down, not to criticise and only to give purposeful advice that improves one's ability to write.  Not like the stuff I write here.  So this post would not belong over there (though I'm not really going to be critical).

What I'd like to do is offer a realistic breakdown of the writing industry at this time, without discussing publishers, writers or writing.  Just plain facts.

Suppose you're a first-time author and your book succeeds in getting on the Times Best Seller list.  As it happens, most debut authors get an advance between $5,000 and $50,000 before the book is finished.  If you get the latter, you're lucky.  As it happens, an author only earns royalties after the advance is "earned out," which means that the sales of the book have covered that upfront payment.  And yes, its entirely possible, in now and present times, to get on the NYTBSL and NOT have your book succeed in earning you $50,000.  But if you get that advance and you don't earn it out, you get to keep the rest.  You don't have to give it back.  Unless you sign a contract.

If your book is hardcover, you'll typically earn 10% on the list price of the book.  That's $2.50 every time a $25 book sells.  If it's a soft cover, the percentage is usually 7.5 to 8.  For ebooks, authors typically get 25% of the publisher's net receipts, but the ebook price is itself cut from the book price.

I've heard long-time authors refer to new authors as getting their "$7,000", which is in the range of what's typical — which is why they don't give first time authors $50,000 up front, unless you're famous for some other reason already.  But let's be generous.  Let's assume your book sells so well that it earns almost four times that: a nice, round, $25,000.  Well done you.

Here's a question: how many 8-hour days at McDonalds would you have to work to make $25,000?  Well, as many cities and places in America are starting to pay $15 an hour for that sort of job (and it's minimum wage in Canada, but obviously not with the USD buying power), let's use that as our baseline.  Number of days?  208.  That's about five full-time work months, assuming 5 days a week.

At this point, we need to ask ourselves, what's the typical length of a book on that makes the list?  Based on observable trends, industry standards, what publishers expect... on the whole, the range is typically between 85,000 and 150,000 words.  In general, if you're writing on a social issue, or with regards to a cultural subject, its easier to come in on the short side of that.  If you want to get into fantasy and sci-fy, expect to be on the far side of that.  But let's go easy.  Let's split it down the middle and call your book 120,000 words.

To equal your McDonald's paycheque, how fast do you have to write?

We can divide this into three phases.  Phase 1: get your first draft finished.  This is easy, like falling off a log.  You have 125 long, wonderful days to do this, so it shouldn't be a problem.  You only need to write 960 words a day.  That’s assuming a smooth, clean pipeline from brain to page. It assumes your plot works, your characters behave, your world makes sense, and the dialogue doesn’t sound like a school play. It assumes you aren’t stopping to sketch a battle map or rework a broken subplot.  You can't lose any weeks worldbuilding rabbit holes, you can't hit any dead ends and have to go back and fix, you can't have extra time to research or make a youtube video about your progress.

On the other hand, McDonald's expects you to be in on Monday, while the book can get shelved for three years and no one carps.

Phase 2: Rewrite your book; you've got 52 days.  You haven't time to fully rewrite the novel, not if you want to get it done in time to earn the same money you'd get at McDonalds.  So, at best, you'll revise about half the book, 60,000 words, trusting the rest.  Rewriting is more intense than writing so you'll need to step it up to 1,155 words per day.  About. 

Phase 3: Edit & Polish.  This is the easiest of all, right?  The book's written, you just have to trim, tighten, fix awkward phrasing... and be very careful not to have a crisis of conscience that your book is actually shit and you ought to write it over again.  After all, there's no pressure — it's not like the people who buy your book or write criticisms of your work, or post things on youtube or social media are going to denounce you, right?  I mean, the world will understand.  I'm sure it will.

How many words a day?  5,000.  For about 29-31 days.

There, you're done.  Congratulations, you've just earned minimum wage.

Assuming your book does sell $25K and not $7K.  In which case, maybe that big win you imagine where getting published is concerned is going to be something of a let-down, huh?

Here's my perspective.  I have been working "writing" jobs since 2004, by which I mean career work for journalism, media and business, 30 to 40 hours a week, and not a minimum wage.  I got those jobs because I could write.  Not in the overblown, dramatic, drum-banging way that fantasy fiction seems to demand nowadays, but through the use of direct, plain english.  In this regard, much of the time, I haven't been successful at this.  I've been unemployed a lot of the time and forced to work jobs that weren't writing oriented, and because of my nature, I've tended to over-stress my interests in D&D and other subjects over soul-crushing day jobs.

But in 20 years, I've earned 14 times the $25K calculation above in wages, by writing.  My self-published book, How to Run, made me personally that much, and Lulu and Amazon an equivalent amount.  Without stress added on by those who would exploit me.

Therefore, it's my personal opinion that the goal is not to learn how to write like those on the best seller lists, but rather, how to write.  Writing is an excellent way to earn money.  Employers really like people who can write.  They want to hire them, and they want to like them.  Forget the glamour.  Just get the skill.