We'll talk about some mistakes that are made in setting up an exterior display, from a dungeon point of view. The first room ~. and indeed, any room that must serve as a utility for beckoning the players forward with zeal and interest ~ IS the store's front window. It is the first impression. It falls on the DM to make that impression well. And lest the reader think I'm speaking from bias, I offer this link, from people who know something about winning over customers.
1. Too Much
"Displaying products in large quantities and without a defined priority, importance and layout makes the window “dumb”, unable to communicate."The truth is that the human eye seeks order, clarity of reading always, even when observing a window display. This doesn’t mean that appreciates monotony but that find it easier to be guided through lines and geometric paths."
As much as I respect the efforts being made to design a dungeon entryway with verve and excitement, right down to putting in the sounds of weapons being used nearby [which breaks the design framework that was set up initially, as we have no idea what's going on any next room], it's too much. It is too many things. Having read through a number, my eyes soon began to glaze over as complex descriptions followed one upon the next. To state the problem bluntly ~ for which I apologize, but we must be clear ~ my thoughts become, "yeah yeah, dead bodies, what else?" The detail, as a game design feature rather than the front paragraphs of a novel, is wasted.
This is not inviting the player into the dungeon. Most of these descriptions leave me feeling immediately threatened; I don't feel in control. Players want to feel like they've got this, so that the room tells them precisely what sort of lair they're in. Empty vases, complex fountains, wet floors, gushed blood, vibrating hums ... these all say, go away. A lit fireplace and a wicker basket may be welcoming at the inn, but down here, it says something very powerful lives here that doesn't need to lock the front door or post a guard.
2. Create Space
"Leave no space between the products creates a fast scan effect, very fast, in the minds of your customers who will compare your shop to a thousand others similar to ignore."
These descriptions are, in detail, very different and unique. But as a body, read in sequence, they are all the same rhythm. Noise, things, five doors, got it. The descriptions simply meld into one another. If you use this same technique to describe every room in your dungeon, the player's heads will quickly fill with non-descript, utterly unimportant details, leading you to say as DM at some point, "Remember? I told you there were hexagonal tiles in the first room. How could you miss that?"
There's only so much new, disconnected information that the brain will take in and remember. As creatures, we're designed to look at a whole forest and miss all the trees, except the one with our dinner sitting on the lowest branch.
3. Spotlight
"You must define which produces to prioritize time to time in the window. Putting the window spotlight on a product that you don't sell a lot is the boost it needs."
In presentation and writing, there is a technique. Pick one thing as the most important thing in the room. Then relate everything else in the room to that one thing. The large, faded rug in the center of the room is immediately below the open lantern hanging form the ceiling. The rug is placed the same distance between the nearer left and right doors. The weave of the rug includes the damaged image of a finch. You see the same finch image on the back of the shelves. A finch has been painted on each door. The rug looks as though it has been used as a welcome mat. The rug is brown, unlike the grey floor stones. And so on.
One thing in this room is actually important. One. More than that, and you're over-reaching the player's attention span.
4. Not Dark, Dirty and Disordered
"I think the title says it all but to be clearer: dark, dirty or disordered are sad and useless displays. In a display window [it] is not enough to take care only of the products; choose the right ones and make them look their best."
It is quite clear that many of you have tried to do this. You've selected a specific door to draw attention to, or some item that might have potential; but these are not spotlighted and there is so much clutter and extraneous detail in the room that the point is missed.
I feel I should point out that I never said, "Present the room as though I, the player, were in the process of entering it." I never said, "Run the room." I said, "Fill it." "Write your description." In short, DESIGN the room. The workshop is about worldbuilding, NOT presentation, and that message was utterly lost. Forgive me for stressing it now, but I need to make this point now to address the disordered problem.
When designing a room, you should think of it in cold design terms, without the adjectives, the emotions, the extraneous effects of sound. And without the mystery and "keeping us in the dark." It would be perfectly acceptable for each of you, who tried to present something as weird and not fully understood, to just say what that thing is. I presume you know it. By "designing your game" from the standpoint of all this presentational clutter, you make it harder for you yourself to know precisely what's going on. The players are not the only people here who will have trouble keeping track of all the darkness.
5. Have a Plan
I might have said a lot of this Tuesday, but I'll be honest. I hadn't identified the problem myself on Tuesday. I said this would be a learning curve. I was going along with what I was seeing, concentrating on the creativity. The creativity is great! But it needs to be washed clear of the sentiment and written out in clear, harsh terms. If you will each go back and review your descriptions, I think you'll find that much of the fill you've added doesn't actually go anywhere. It is just dressing. And as the fellow who wrote the linked post would say, nothing in a well dressed window is put there casually.
Who here had a plan? If so, let the rest of us know about it, since we will ALSO be designing the dungeon. That way, we can decide on the best plan, rather than the best descriptive paragraph, and then hone and finesse that plan into a truly interesting dungeon.
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| Description is Easy |
It is amusing that we all "ran" the room.
ReplyDeleteAll right, my plan? Present as believable an area as I can. It always bothers me when I read/play in a space that doesn't ever seem to have had a useful function. My first room was a waiting room, the barred holes were murder holes. I thought sturdy doors and a portcullis would make sense from a defensive point of view to trap or contain potential threats here, and the benches were a concession to comfort for welcome guests.
I hadn't planned further than that because I didn't think we were supposed to, but I do have the overall aim of linking whatever comes into a space that was once built and inhabited by beings that designed it for use.
Thank you for the insight.
The immediate guess I had that they were potentially murder holes shows what a cliche it is.
ReplyDeleteI'm 100% on board with you, Haggis. Someone built the room, someone laid the stone, someone hung the doors so they would open. Which means our first problem is, why is the room empty?
I have a sneaking suspicion that people "ran" the room because they're used to writing out their descriptions and designs that way. Presumedly, it saves time where it comes to presentation. But as Lance pointed out on another post, it sounds "canned," which is not a good presentation strategy, either.
ReplyDeleteIn what way empty? If you mean of inhabitants, I took "no monsters" (and may have assumed wrongly) to mean "no creatures." If of contents, it is deliberately so. The front door is open, so any objects of value may have been removed. Or it may be that the room is deliberately bare to prevent the destruction of property by unwanted visitors.
ReplyDeleteNot all cliches are bad, but I accept the murder holes are a cliche. In your opinion are they an acceptable one given the intention of the room?
Yes, sorry, I did mean empty of creatures who built the room.
ReplyDeleteI hesitate to judge the value of the murder holes themselves. That's not my role here; if I met them as a player, I'd expect to be caught by their danger on the way out, not in. Not being the "fearless dick-swinging fighter" that some play, their presence would prey on my mind if I went on, and I'd be less inclined to venture far or engage creatures within, knowing they were there.
Fair enough, Alexis. I've enjoyed this first exercise and look forward to the second. For what it's worth the murder holes are purely scene setting in my mind, no "gotcha" planned. A torch shoved up there would show an unoccupied guard room in a dungeon I made myself. Something, perhaps, for the players to exploit later.
ReplyDeleteNot to belabor the point, but ... I wouldn't KNOW that as a player; and if you felt compelled to reassure me that the murder holes weren't a threat, then why put them there at all?
ReplyDeleteHello Alexis,
ReplyDeleteQuick answer before bed, excuse the brevity.
First, great post. Never thought about the links with visual merchandising, quite obvious though in retrospect. Once again you learned us well.
You did say fill, we did "ran" it, guilty as charged. Though I "ran" the room because it was what other did, and it didn't occur to me that I could just describe what was there simply. I always write my description in lists of facts and elements, nothing pre-made.
Point 2 is ambiguous, reading it I've the impression you're speaking of how reading it to players feel - and it's a worthy remark, considering we "ran" our rooms - but it should be of no concern for a DM-centered description, shouldn't it ? I may be wrong. And I'm anyway very interested by how you would adress this point, I could learn from that.
The plan, well I got 2.
First was having 2 dead adventurers in the room, by wounds from a previous fight, one in a corner and the second dead while blocking the door with his body, with 3 backpacks propped indicating a third fellow somewhere. Scratched it by rereading and thinking we couldn't surmise what was in the other rooms.
Second was two adventurers dead from a fight with a goul, 3 backpacks indicating another fellow, and some sort of treasure on them to make players salivate. I utterly failed to think on what was behind the doors because I thought that you'd generate things and I wouldn't have any idea what it'd be. I've great troubles if I can't imagine what the whole place is/was.
In all cases, the backpacks should contain useful stuff (travel mostly), to wet the appetite.
Very nice exercise though, I'm in for the next step - should we do a rewrite ?
Best regards
PS : I've no excuse for my failure to understand what you wanted or do a proper job, though ;)
Vlad,
ReplyDeleteI'm not looking for a "proper job." The workshop is a process-driven learning experience in which we break down the elements of what everyone is producing, to clearly identify what problems arise when we set out to devise a dungeon. The "random generation" is there to teach us to be flexible, so that we're constantly having to change our plans and perspectives rather than becoming locked in a specific way of thinking.
"Space" ... and that's what I assume you mean by point 2, and not the second comment I made to Orwellian Haggis ... describes an artistic device. Take Rembrandt's Night Watch, since being in the Rhine Valley you've probably seen it in person, you lucky fellow. Note how the light strikes the individual figures in different amounts, highlighting in particular the two men at the fore and the woman in the background. The bodies of the men, in darkness, provde space around their faces. Darkness provides space around each figure, highlighting the drum, the circle of light upon the floor in the foreground, the gloss on the pikes and the flags in the background. An immense darkness, or space, fills the top half of the picture.
Therefore, although there are multiple figures clustered together, each has their own personality, both with respect to their fellows, and with the grandness of the dark night that they venture forth into.
Providing space in a dungeon room MEANS providing it with emptiness. There is nothing in this corner and that corner. Everything in the room is over here, on the right wall. This door is painted with a finch. Those doors are empty of color. That is the general idea.
I have a plan.
ReplyDeleteThe room acts like the hub in a wheel, creating a central rally point for the characters to come back to as they explore each of the paths out of the room. With the understanding the rest of the dungeon is going to be created with random tables, it made sense to me to create a "start point" for the players. I felt the best way to accomplish that was an open space.
From an NPC perspective, I viewed the room as a foyer/entry way to a long abandoned complex. This would have been a high traffic area with people moving into, out of and through the various entrances to whatever tasks lie beyond. We don't know what those maybe, yet, and I wanted to avoid making assumptions about specific purposes and activities those might have been.
I understand, now, that I missed an opportunity to tie the room together with a coat of arms on the rug, repeated on the vases and perhaps a shield/relief between the doors on the two sidewalls.
The lantern was my starting point. It is a tarnished, almost completely black, silver lantern, in which the Continual Light spell had been cast. I went back and forth between an ornate, apparently, wrought iron chandelier and the simple, open lantern; ultimately, choosing the lantern because of it's portability, making it potential treasure for the party.
The large rug was the next item, I thought, the original inhabitants would want a way to muffle and reduce the sound of echoes in a stone walled chamber. I described it as faded, because I misread that the spell created "daylight" and was thinking that the rug would have become 'sun-bleached' over the years, washing out much of the detail. An indication that the room/dungeon hadn't had any traffic in a long, long time.
The vases, are also made of silver that has become heavily tarnished over the years. This is a clue to the players that the lantern might be more than a simple iron/steel frame and have some additional, intrinsic, value beyond the magic light. Placing them on either side of the far door was where I changed focus to the doors.
The far door, with it's additional decoration, probably leads to a welcoming/reception area; much like a sitting room or living room. Or perhaps it leads to a small (or large) worship area.
The door with the "lighter tone" is actually reinforced and camoflaged to look like the other four doors. I expect that it leads to an area of value/importance to the previous inhabitants; labratory, vault, workshop?
The door that is slightly ajar, I thought would be a tantalizing, 'easy' start for the characters as they start their exploration. I envisioned an NPC, in the distant pass, hurriedly closing the door and running away with verifying that the door had latched. I'm curious to see what ends up behind that door.
I haven't given much thought to the remaining doors beyond thinking that 5 distinct choices was too many for the my players to pick from. The other three doors would most likely dominate the discussion and the focus of the players.
With the descriptive text, I tried to describe the major features of the room, in the order that they would likely come to the characters attention. As the approached the room coming down the stairs they would see that the room is well lit, the rug on the floor, the light on the ceiling, the 5 doors, the shelves and vases, the heavy layer of dust, and the difference between the reinforced door and the open door.
(damn Blogger ate my comment . . .)
ReplyDeleteThe dungeon is an abandoned lair. It used to belong to an apocalyptic cult. The doors are both natural ingress to the cult's lair and magical portals to pocket dimensions. Activating the portal requires an object of rough size and shape according to the silhouette. Thus, placing a sword into the one door causes it to turn into a magic portal to another place. Further, each portal is keyed for a specific object; placing any sword will open to one location while using the Sword of War (or some similar artifact, appropriate to the world's lore) would open to another location.
The glint on the floor is gold dust mixed with the sand between the tiles.
First of all, I have to tell you that I love this workshop concept. There goes a long time between me running real games and I have wanted to try some of the concepts from How to Run ever since i read it. My previous attempts, however have been at workbuilding on a grand scale, which have been much more daunting and difficult than this simple beginning.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I think everyone presented the room the way they did is because you specifically asked us to "Write your description in the comments, as though you are presenting it to me, the player". I thought it was a little difficult because I wanted to elaborate on some things but not immediately present them. Hence, I used parenthesis for what was only available through interaction.
Well here is my plan:
I wanted this room to feel welcoming, not dangerous and enable the players to choose themselves how they wanted to proceed.
The voices behind one door, the murals and the fireplace was to show them what kind of creatures they could expect nearby and their values (human and fond of battle although likely not hostile). And also so the players could choose themselves whether they wanted to encounter them.
The hatch door was to present a less used room where they would likely not meet anyone.
The marbles/beads were to present a way that might be dangerous (the necklace broke because of struggle) but also might contain treasure.
The lit fireplace, the wicker basket, the benches and the sound of running water was mostly just dressing, I admit to that, but I did think it was nice to describe some things that could come in handy. I mean the bench could be a ram for or block one of the doors or an improvised shield against the creatures nearby. The fireplace and kindlewood provides fire for those that forgot it themselves.
One lesson that I am definitely getting from this is that less indeed is more, and specifically to avoid redundancy in more than one thing with the same function.
I am finding this workshop educational and illuminating.
ReplyDeleteI ask people to create ONE ROOM. Instead, I get whole dungeons. The reasoning is perfectly clear. Rooms do not exist as entities unto themselves, and a well-made dungeon should fit together like pieces in a jigsaw. But here’s the thing. The goal of the workshop is not to start with a master plan and then fill in the details. The goal is to understand the details, essay to make them well, then to let the dungeon form in an ORGANIC, non-predictable manner.
The problem with your plan, Laughing Lunatic, is that it is massively, spectacularly dependent on the players caring about the intricacies of each element. My eyes glazed over the moment you wrote, “…the rest of the dungeon is going to be created with random tables …” Quite clearly, you’re missing the point here. I’m guessing you did not fully read the original post, or that you simply chose to dismiss it.
Of course, anyone here is perfectly welcome to make whatever dungeon they desire. But if you’re already so certain that you have this dungeon design thing down solid, what are you doing here?
Ozymandias, the problem with your plan is that, like the Laughing Lunatic, you’re assuming you have any control regarding the further layout of the dungeon. You don’t. The goal here is to feel the constraints of a system that forces you to abandon your “normal way of doing things” and see formulas for world design that you’re not used to exploring.
I’ll try to explain, but who knows if anyone will even see this comment.
ReplyDeleteWhen I ask for a “plan,” I am not speaking of a plan for the entire dungeon. I am saying, given the premise that I’ve offered, where the rooms are going to be randomly generated, where you have absolutely no knowledge of any kind of any part of the world outside this room, and where you don’t even know the level of the player characters (done deliberately, and no one asked), what plan do you have to manage the restraints put upon your freedom to create?
The resistance I’m getting is very telling. Your collective consciousness is so USED to this sort of design, if you’re asked to break the formula, you find yourselves chafing and wanting to return to the formula at any cost.
Which is fine. But if the formula is working for you, why are you interested in taking a workshop to improve your worldbuilding skills?
Sebastian, you've definitely got me there. Those words do appear in my original post, and I am certainly to blame for that.
ReplyDeleteWell.
I also said, "keep it simple." Simple. Voices behind a door, a fireplace, marbles and beads, dressing intended to help the party at some point, running water and more is not "simple." It looks excessive. Moreover, in all my born days as a DM, I've never met a party yet that would trust a single thing in this room. The very fact that it was "welcoming" would be ringing alarm bells from here to Moses. Who is keeping this fire lit? If it is going merrily, it must have been fed recently, or this is a dangerous, magical fire that burns of its own accord and could house a demon or be the gateway into who knows where!
The more you shove into a room, the more opportunity you give players to overthink every nuance and aspect of the room, to death, until to get the game going again you have to shout at them, "It's just a fire! It's just marbles!" At which point, you've smashed the fourth wall of your room and what value is that?
Maybe you have players in your game that would accept this at face value. Not me. Perhaps it's because I'm out to play mind games and force players to get on their toes, because that's how tension and momentum make the game flow.
I honestly don't think I'm talking to a deaf audience. But I have said, "keep it simple" in about six different ways, since Monday, but I'm still getting answers back that add more and more detail, rather than cutting it back and producing a sharp, single exciting, immediately digestible concept.
Perhaps it is because I don't see any way that a vote on this material is going to produce a single choice for what the room looks like, so we can move forward.
I'll admit I initially misunderstood the aim, hence "running" the room, but I'm ready to continue if you're willing. My normal way of doing things is to keep the beginning quite sedate, building up to busier rooms etc. Could you advise how you'd present this room as an example? I'm eager to learn.
ReplyDeleteAt the moment, Orwellian Haggis, I feel like a doctor, prodding the patient, finding out what's wrong.
ReplyDeleteYou don't need me to give you an example. If you were a player, looking at any other description other than you own, what would you focus on?
My point would be that if it isn't the same thing for every person who enters that room, something is very, very wrong.
You are quite right Alexis. My presentation did not end up being simple. I agree that it would be an improvement to only keep a couple of the most functional things.
ReplyDeleteI can only speak for myself, but I specifically avoided reading anything other than your initial post on the workshop before writing my entry so as not to be too influenced by others. I definitely got your message about simplicity afterwards but didn't think to modify my room. I can imagine others might have done the same.
Unless the voting/choice is made soon, I will try to incorporate the feedback into my entry this evening. In any case, I look forward to the next room. This workshop has already been very helpful.
I get it, I think.
ReplyDeleteIf we all cut our entries down to bare bones, what do we want? The player to move forwards. We need to window dress the door we want the player to choose. We need to highlight it, make it interesting, and pay lip service to the rest of the room.
A second attempt:
The room is thirty feet wide and fifty long, with an arched door on the opposite wall. A small bronze gong hangs from a thin rope slung around a nail hammered into the gaps in the stonework of the wall. A wooden hammer lies in front of the door. There is nothing in the room but four other doors and some benches.
Though I recognize I'm only defending my initial position, I'll yet still offer a counter argument: even if I have a "plan," it is one that is flexible. I don't know what rooms will or will not fit with the overall theme. If a contradiction appears, I will adjust fire. If all I'm doing right now is designing the dungeon, worst case is I have to go back and revise a few rooms.
ReplyDeleteIf I was any more flexible, I feel I would end up with elements that would also create a contradiction, which would require revision, so it's rather inevitable, isn't it?
"...and where you don’t even know the level of the player characters (done deliberately, and no one asked)..."
ReplyDeleteI knew one of those was coming! The surgeon is indeed a female.
"If you will each go back and review your descriptions, I think you'll find that much of the fill you've added doesn't actually go anywhere."
I disagree with this in relation to my post. Granted I had Npc's when I wasn't supposed to but practically everything I wrote was important and direct. I focused on the butcher, described the sound of rushing water as covering normal speech, and most of my description was about the emotional state of the player's potential allies. Also, my plan to absorb the uncertainty of random generation is the ability for nearly any enemy level to be encountered in the murk and connectedness under a large city (rats up to beholders). So again, Npc's are wrong but I think I did rather well in the other regards.
As to why someone would join this workshop if they are happy with their skills? First, we don't know what we don't know about our world building skills so giving it a shot is logical regardless. And second, if it's worth having a special workshop over it is going to be hard to grasp, in part or in whole. Maybe we just aren't able to intuit the lesson's objective.
I'm not trying to act the ass. I deeply respect your skill and work, Alexis, but I dont see you as a teacher. I see you as a drill sergeant who wont let us off the hook by just nodding and saying "yes, sir!" No, you'll only feel satisfied once you've drawn blood and that is going to require we stand behind our ideas firmly enough for your surgeon's scalpel (or hatchet if we're really flailing) to pierce the skin.
Justin,
ReplyDeleteIf you feel very strongly that you have this dungeon-building concept well in hand, the last thing I'd want would be to tell you how to do it. I don't ask to be anyone's teacher, if they feel I'm not qualified.
Alexis,
ReplyDeleteI've made another attempt at designing a room based on your feedback and posted on the original article.
I have not intentionally dismissed, or ignored, the instructions and thought I was following them to keep it simple.
Part of my mis-understanding is that in the original post you wrote:
"...It is more important that you have some idea of what ought to be on the other side of those doors..."
Yet, in your criticism of our designs you've written:
"...you’re assuming you have any control regarding the further layout of the dungeon..."
In my original design, I had some ideas about what could be in the next rooms but fully expected to revise those ideas/plans based on what is rolled... I've just realized that I have made another assumption about the workshop, specifically, that this starting room concept will be revised/adjusted as the dungeon is developed and we have a better understanding as to what lies beyond those doors.
I think you've demonstrated your qualifications, many times over.
ReplyDeleteI dont know what I feel. I think I'm the best DM I've ever personally experienced, but this website is rarefied air, man. I think for the intro room I did quite well (I'd want to play my intro) but it's only the first room and I'd love to feel like I'd gotten better.
ReplyDeleteAlso dont take being a drill sergeant as an insult. The reason I dont see you as my teacher is because you don't work for me. I could have never come here, none of us could have come here, and you'd still be doing what you do. You're not a professional instructor, Alexis, you're a goddamn D&d force of nature. Put another way, 'instructor' sums you up as well as it would Sam Kinneson in that clip you posted a while back and I (we?) want to be Rodney and not some teary-eyed Blondie. Sock it to me!
Between Alexis' posts, his responses, and the rest of the discussion (especially OrwellianHaggis most recent comment) I feel like I've learned something new. I'd like to get my hands dirty trying it out, either with the same room or a one.
ReplyDeleteAlexis, you had mentioned choosing or voting on a plan for the dungeon and them continuing with the workshop. Is that the plan for moving forward?
By the way, I wanted to say that I'm massively excited by this workshop. It's one thing to read your blog, but it's completely different to be able to present our ideas to you and get your feedback on them.
I'll admit to skimming your classes and not having the ideas land, but this practical application is great. I feel that workshops like this could possibly be monetized for you in the future. At least for me, it's hitting home in a way the other opportunities you've offered didn't. I'm very grateful for that.
Re-reading this more closely, the plan isn't a layout for the dungeon. It isn't choosing the inhabitants of the dungeon. It isn't a general theme for the dungeon. Alexis makes it plan as day: "What plan do you have to manage the restraints put upon your freedom to create?"
ReplyDeleteRight now, I've got a tiny little bit of information (this room), five doors that the players can choose, more than enough to freeze them in decision paralysis. That's not even taking other choices into consideration, like the players leaving the dungeon, or trying to cut through a wall or floor, using divination magic, etc.?
As the DM, what do I do?
I lead them to one of the doors, it doesn't matter which, so they can open it and I can figure out what else I have to work with. I get more information in the only what that I can.
It's a meta-plan, but it's a plan.
In my opinion, Discord, the right plan.
ReplyDeleteJustin, I don't take drill sargeant as an insult. In this context, however, I do take it as a wildly inaccurate and emotive description of what I've said and what I'm trying to do here.
Laughing Lunatic, the statement that you should have some idea of what ought to be on the other side of the doors was never meant to include layout or occupation of the dungeon. It meant, effectively, that once you place something in this room, you establish a theme that MUST be continued on into the next room. So be careful.
Again. I am not a perfect human being and I am essaying to create a format that exists nowhere else and never has existed.
So, please continue to repeat my words and the problematic conflicting messages I appear to have sent. I will try to sort it out. If anyone has any problem with my running this workshop, or my credentials, I don't see any value in your stating as much. I'd appreciate some trust here.
Justin, you may be the best DM anyone has ever personally experienced. But if you're going to contibute here, please accept that this is my classroom and that the syllabus will work as I've conceived it. You are not the teacher here.
No hard feelings, nyet?
By George, I think he's got it!
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Discord. It wasn't clicking for me, either. This observation makes me reconsider my original plan, at least in terms of, "can I still make this idea work or do I need to abandon it for something better?"
How do we drive player action? That's a critical question. I know if I had presented my room as originally conceived, some players (from past experiences) would dive in; others would hesitate.
I want to entice as many as possible.
"Justin, you may be the best DM anyone has ever personally experienced. But if you're going to contibute here, please accept that this is my classroom and that the syllabus will work as I've conceived it. You are not the teacher here."
ReplyDeleteNo hard feelings, but... what? Maybe if I'd gotten more than a one sentence rules clarification for my post I'd have something to think of and work on. As it is, I felt the need to lay out my questions to get something from the leader of this exercise. This is not usurpation of leadership or questioning the syllabus. Also, please dont 'edit' my posts by only replying to the parts that make me look bad or allow you some jab or something.
Something about my writing style or very personality bothers you. I feel quite confident in that. Jesus, man, just tell me in some polite way that we dont gel. No need to freeze me out. You said in the 'Visceral' post you were bullied in school. The cold shoulder is just as much a form of abuse.
There is no need to post this comment unless you wish to do so. If you really need to tell me something you have my email, but it likely won't help anything.
P.s. drill sergeant is notably more emotive than 'the most gonzo old school dm on the web'? Or again from 'Visceral' 'arrogant bastard'? Whatever. Your skilled and talented but also seemingly quite damaged.
I'm trying to establish boundaries.
ReplyDeleteI'm not at my computer just now, but waiting for a job interview. So I have to make this short until I get home.
Your position seems to demand something of me that I'm not giving. You state your ability as DM plainly, but still you want the right to participate. You state that I'm not a teacher, but here you are. I strongly disagree with your evaluation of the goal here, yet because of my agenda, I don't wish to engage. You have me in a box.
Thanks for telling me you aren't completely free right now. That's the only kind of communication I need. I truly dont think I'm demanding anything at all. I'm asking for clarification during a collaborative exercise. If you are unwilling or unable to give it, for any reason, please just tell me and I'd be grateful for any explanation you can/will give.
ReplyDeleteI feel this way not only for this collaboration but also for other interactions we've had in alternate, informal posts where I have put in time and energy to communicate and received basically nothing in return. Although not every time, I freely state.
But no hard feelings, do as you will.
If you're going to have your feelings hurt this is the wrong exercise for you. We want to learn. Feelings be damned.
ReplyDeleteOrHag, I never said my feelings were hurt. I mentioned that Alexis may have been acting in a contradictory manner as relates to bullying he experienced. This was to make a point. I have been clear I am not upset, only asking to be treated in a straightforward which is something a neutral person can reasonably do.
DeleteAlso, your statement doesn't help you learn anything related to the exercise. So you also demonstrate contradictory thought. Please don't send me a message merely to start a confrontation. Thank you and I hope you learn much about dungeon design.
Justin, considering the last paragraph of your first comment, it should come as no surprise to you that Alexis won't hold back. :)
ReplyDeleteI think I get it now! For this first room of the dungeon, we most of all want to empower the players, or at least make them feel empowered. I thought of a lot of ways to do this but most of them related to things outside the game, made use of monsters/NPCs, required that I could control the surroundings (both spatial and temporal) of this dungeon room, or required that I knew the specifics of the player characters. All things that i obviously cannot do.
Therefore, I chose to let the players succeed at something or get rewarded. I try to show that the dungeon contains treasure and that it's just here for the taking since no one lives here.
Researching options on making the players feel powerful really convinced me that this would be something that I'd love reading your take on Alexis. Almost everything I found relating to TTRPG was advice instead about how to take away this feeling from players. So I hope you will consider this as a suggestion for a post.
Home again.
ReplyDeleteLet's see if we can sort out this disconnect.
My words, "a monster of any type," was meant to humans and demi-humans. The Monster Manual has a listing for "Men." The Dungeon Monster tables in the DMG lists a human subtable. Human, as an encounter, has always been a monster to my mind. I can appreciate that 2e and forward maybe fucked up this relationship, but now and then, because I've been playing forever, we're going to have a language problem. I had every reason to believe I was being clear.
In your original description, you included details relating to the top of the steps (not asked for), a panicked baker as an excuse to enter the room (utterly irrelevant and unnecessary), the distance of the chamber below street level (superfluous), running water roaring outside of the room (dismissing the limit imposed), the bray and howl of city guard hounds (contrived necessity, irrelevant to the room description request), the fact that the hounds are "closing in and can't be a minute or two behind (extraneous detail referring to an adventure that wasn't part of the assignment), a torchlight belonging to the baker (unnecessary, since a light source is presumed to be carried by any dungeon party), two men (which I class as monsters), tension, fear and suspicion in the men (which has absolutely nothing to do with the appearance and contents of the room), and dialogue (which has nothing to do with the appearance and contents of the room).
Your actual description of the room is as follows:
"A chamber made from stone blocks. The air is humid with an overpowering smell of sewage. The full dimensions are hidden, by two structural support pillars off to each side made from the same stone blocks and seemingly 7-8 feet around.
"The gloom. The party can now see on either side of the room two circular sewers paths large enough for two men abreast leading down into inky darkness and at the rear of the chamber a single larger sewer twice the size of the others angled back up to the street."
That isn't even clear. (cont...)
Justin,
ReplyDeleteYou call it "thinking outside of the box." In the university I went to, it's called, not doing the assignment.
You ask me for clarification during a collaborative exercise. I believe the clarification you're looking for is that I should explain why I am insisting on this particular set of rules and instructions for how the room should be described, so that you will feel that my rules and instructions have legitimacy in your eyes. I will try to explain that.
My goal here is not to teach anyone to make a dungeon. This is not "dungeon design 101," or any intended course on how to make a dungeon interesting so that players will want to hop in and get interested in the adventure. Your presentation of the room was very directly oriented towards that goal and as a presentation goes, it was well enough. As a player, I chafe hard at being asked to invest in NPCs I don't know and have no reason to care about, which I'm expected to then follow. But I know this is a technique that will work with many players and that's fine.
BUT ...
The top of the workshop post made my agenda perfectly clear. "We need to spend time participating in actual game to unlock our comfort level with the game's manifestation."
Justin, you are clearly VERY comfortable with the sort of introduction you wrote. But I'm not interested in feeding your comfort level. I'm interested in fucking with your comfort level. Because your players will. You may make wonderful plans and design wonderful dungeons, but they depend on a particular kind of player with a particular interest. Many of the people here are having trouble with their players and their comfort level; they need to adapt themselves to nimble, patterned thinking in order to overcome that moment in the game when they freeze up and don't know what to do.
If you don't have those moments, ever, then you don't need this workshop. If you don't like your comfort level fucked with, because you feel it is illegimate, then you don't belong in this workshop. If you feel that I'm going to explain every nuance of every detail of my teaching lesson plan, I'll point you to any educational treatise on semantic methodology regarding teachers leading students to understanding the problem through making existential leaps of cognition.
My clarification, then, is this. Open your mind. Expect to be led where I want to lead you, and not to where you want to go. Stop trying to control the process. Relax. No one here should give a rat's ass about anything except learning what's on the table.
Do you understand? If this class, and the way I'm running it, isn't your cup of tea, please leave. If you want to stay, then get in your seat, get with the program and change your mind.
Thank you for putting effort into your reply. I now see that we are indeed very far apart in many ways (semantics, intent, etc.) and I was never going to be a good fit for this collaboration. Obviously this means that I feel you have heavily misrepresented my position in your reply, but that's fine! You feel I've done the same and we can agree to disagree, I presume.
ReplyDeleteThis is what I meant by saying further communication probably won't help our positions but maybe someone else will benefit from your explanation. If we interact in the future feel free to just say in as terse a manner as you like that you are simply unwilling to discuss something further. I wont be insulted (pretty damn sure I'm on the autism spectrum) and we can both save time.
Can't stop me from reading, though.
P.s. If you actually can ban me or something, please don't.
Sebastian,
ReplyDeleteWe definitely want to empower players. We do that the same way any game does ~ by providing difficult, yet potentially achievable goals, like hitting a ball and reaching first, being able to buy Boardwalk, destroying all the defending armies in Yakutsk, taking white's queen and so on. In some ways, these achievements are inevitable ... but the first time we take our dad's white queen or consolidate Europe three turns running while our brother is tearing his hair out, it feels pretty good.
D&D is the same way. We don't give things away. We put a few easy things in reach after breaking past a few easy obstacles. And then, like reaching second base, then third base, the rewards are harder to obtain and more promising. We WANT to give these rewards; but we want to give them in just such a way that the players have to work. The difficulty has to match the reward precisely. It's easy to hold Australia; Europe is a bitch. So we give 2 armies for Australia and 5 armies for Europe.
Kobalds are easy to kill, if there aren't many. So we let the party kill a few, then we give them just enough treasure to think the trouble was worth it. But not so much treasure that they see that particular trouble as "easy pickings." There should never be easy pickings in a dungeon. Ever. The pickings need to be precisely balanced against the trouble, so the players ALWAYS hesitate before entering trouble, and ALWAYS feel that it was "fine, but could have been better." Fine is exactly the reward we're shooting for. A trifle disappointing, but "enough."
I'm not "banning" you, I'm not even actively telling you not to participate. I'm asking you to get in the spirit of the proceedings. That's as harsh as I'm making this.
ReplyDeleteI did not want to misrepresent your position. I am unable to do anything but give my perception of your position, right or wrong.
Give it time. You are completely welcome to participate.
No can do. At least not this exercise. I'm in full analysis mode on this now and that leads to multi-paragraph posts which inevitably bother or anger someone which always leads to me having the adroit idea of... talking my way out!
ReplyDeleteI do much better face-to-face, believe it or not. I spent nearly my entire youth building up a public persona that allows me to slide through most social situations without leaving a very large ripple. Online I don't have the time restrictions or interpersonal incentive to use 'public Justin' and this is what happens.
Please keep the ideas coming, guys.
Sorry, Justin. I didn't mean offence despite my words, I misread your intent. This isn't terribly constructive but you should know I regret my post.
ReplyDeleteYeah, text only comms are great and terrible. Not only are we good, I promise when (not if) the alien/zombie attack comes we will fight together on the same side. Cheers.
DeleteI love coming online to see 40+ comments. That's how I know we're having a good time here.
ReplyDeleteAlso I did a terrible job, and I'm looking forward to trying again in the next room. As always kids, read the directions, not what you THINK the directions are.