If you wish, you can see the new progress on the Juvenis campaign taking place, in a wiki format. The players are in a locked battle with an Ice Toad that has just exhaled its breath weapon, while a demon fashioned of red mud is forcing saving throw after saving throw. Already, the combat is strained, with Embla having fallen into negative hit points, while the party has issues fighting a demon that can only be hit by magical weapons, when only two of the party have them.
It is for me, even if I'm boxed in a corner at the moment.
ReplyDeleteMy AP is trash in my armor, and frankly right now that feels really painful, but I can't say I'm jealous of Embla's situation at AC 7.
Someone get me a byrnie and TWO hirelings to carry my trash everywhere: I'm here to get stuck in, not just stuck!
Alexis, I'd like to call attention to a couple of things I noticed in reading the most recent Juvenis campaign page and get your thoughts as a DM. Please note that these are not criticisms, but rather my seeking your insight as to your DMing philosophy when these things come up, as your way of handling these situations seems to be a bit different from the way I handle them.
ReplyDelete1. When Embla takes damage from the toad's breath weapon and is stunned she asks "do we have any healing available"? It seems like this was the PLAYER asking the other players, and not the CHARACTER shouting this out to her companions (there were no quotation marks in the original entry from Embla, I added them). Pandred then replies (again seemingly as a player and not in character) that he has a healing salve but he doesn't think it is worth using at that time. I noticed other entries as well when re-reading the older Juvenis campaign blog where the players discuss strategy and exchange thoughts at the table, even though their characters weren't in a position to speak to one another. What are the rules at your table for allowing player-to-player discussion of a situation when their characters are not in proximity or are not in a situation where they can discuss those things (such as in a heated and deadly combat)?
2. As the DM you announce to the entire party that the toad cannot be hit by normal weapons when Vafrandir scores a hit but does no damage. Do you typically broadcast those findings to the whole party, even if only one person (in this case Vafrandir) would have come to this realization based on his ineffective strike? Or would you only tell Vafrandir and either let him find a way to communicate it to the rest of the group himself or let the others find out the hard way?
I appreciate your opinion on this, because it is something that as a DM I pay a lot of attention to, and perhaps it's not worth my time worrying about it. Perhaps these are things you do differently at your table than you do online due to the constraints of the medium?
Thanks!
No, I have no problem explaining.
ReplyDeleteVafrandir didn't attack the toad, he attacked the "grey creature", which I took to mean the demon. Undoubtedly, this was a misunderstanding on my part; and Vafrandir as well, as from the notes neither of us felt any need to clarify. Clearly, I'm in the wrong because the demon is red in the image and Vafrandir is wrong because it is clearly a "toad" and not a "creature," being that I took the latter to refer to the thing that no one knows what it is.
Precision in describing what's being attacked is important. I'm looking at a mass of words and perhaps thinking too quickly (I've made a bunch of errors, indicating that I'm out of practice as a DM, damn you covid). If Vafrandir is reading this, and others too, I'm going to let the miss stand; the toad CAN be hit with ordinary weapons (Engelhart would have confirmed this when the party fought the first toad) and the red mud demons CAN'T. My apologies, it took Zilifant to point out a discrepancy.
The answer to (2) is yes, I usually broadcast this sort of information to the whole party. I have no interest in undermining momentum for details that the characters could be shouting to each other while the battle is going on. Momentum is more important than quibbling about who knows what in a situation like this. Combat is complicated enough.
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ReplyDeleteThis notion that the PLAYER and the CHARACTER are different entities has proliferated through a community like a disease. We began noticing the annoyance presented by players who insisted on constantly speaking "in character" and dragging out every game session with incessant purplish thespian over-acting designed to self-promote one's personal selfish gaming agenda. That translated over time into Protocol Rules that tried to dictate when players were allowed to communicate and how they were allowed, and under what circumstances they were allowed to say certain things and if the character was allowed to know something that was anachronistic, etcetera.
In effect, this excessive communication protocol directive became "THE game," in that every player at the table now had to address the complexity of how they were allowed to speak in character and when communication between players, actual human beings, was permitted, with the DM and usually one or two sacred self-appointed priests at the table acting as regulation gate keepers over the whole mess.
That resulted in the constant and infuriating snickering and smirking of other players, evident in presentions like Critical Role, whenever anyone tried to talk "in character" and did a hackneyed job of it, especially if they made an "in-joke" deliberately intended to break the fourth wall, until any semblance of actual character, except as a pantomime-like caricature, became obliterated.
MEANWHILE, the actual game, you know, where we roll dice and decide if we survive, in a fast-paced and exciting decision-making process, was sacrificed on the altar of drama-student game metrics. All praise the drama!
So, to answer your question Zilifant, and no I don't see what you're asking as a criticism. We can call it Old School, but it's really just that I've been playing so long that I was here before the Posers took over the game. The Player IS the Character, there's no necessary difference whatsoever. Moreover, if the Player asks a question in language that the character "wouldn't know," I just don't care.
In the scene depicted, all the characters are no more than 30 feet apart (each hex being 5 ft. in diameter, not ten), meaning their as close as the kitchen and the bedroom. They are absolutely in a "position" to shout excitedly at each other.
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ReplyDeleteI don't think I've ever seen a war film where it wasn't depicted that men under fire were able to shout and scream at each other. And that with weapons much louder than swords and clubs. I've never heard any military family member or friend have a problem with this. It's a matter of interpretation. You read Embla the Player say, "Do we have any healing available?" I read that as Embla the Character screaming, "OH SHIT, I'M HIT, I'M HIT, HEAL ME!"
Would it be more dramatic if Embla put it that way? Oh, probably. But would it be CLEARER?
None of us are actually in the situation we're describing. It would be a lot easier if we were all actually there, if we had really spent weeks and months in each other's company, if we could SEE each other's faces and we had hundreds of hours of dialogue with each other and with beings in that world about being hit and what healing we had and so on. If any of this were real, Embla wouldn't have to ask that question, because it would have been explained and SEEN with her own eyes how much of everything the party had, because they would have packed it, they would have been there when it was bought, it would have been talked about, there would have been personal and direct visual and sensory cues about the presence of EVERYTHING the characters possessed, what they were, what they could do and so on.
But we have none of that, because this isn't real. This is notekeeping and detail and accounting, and Embla isn't even at the same physical table as the other players, so she doesn't actually know what the rest of the party has for healing.
What matters, then, isn't "drama," it's COMMUNICATION. The crippling kick in the gronknuts that "role-playing" has become is that it is 90% putting obstructions between the free and easy communication between players that makes the game thrilling, sprightly and instantly comprehensible between the actual human beings playing the actual game.
For what? So we can smirk reprovingly and condescendingly at one another?
That totally makes sense Alexis, thank you for the quick response. For the record, I am not a DM who makes my characters play-act their communication with each other or NPCs, just as my players don't expect me to play-act everything that each NPC says to them. Sometimes things play out that way naturally in my game, but we are always very forgiving with each other regarding the intent of what was being communicated versus what was actually said aloud. None of us in my game are trained actors, after all.
ReplyDeleteI do think though that it is important for a DM to establish with their players that when they communicate in the heat of battle, for instance, that that are shouting at each other. Which means, if one player/character says to another "grab the wand of lightning bolts off the mule and blast that thing!" they are saying it loud enough for enemies to hear. If they speak the character's language, they will totally be tipped off and try to prevent the other character from grabbing the wand.
Another situation where this seems relevant is if the party is NOT in combat and in a situation where even whispered communication would be noticed (for instance if the party is attempting to sneak up on someone or sitting in a church service).
So, I agree with your analysis, and I am very much against punitive "gotcha" rules regarding these scenarios. However, I do think it is important for a DM to establish these kinds of things with their players beforehand, so that the players can recognize that things they say out loud have the potential to be overheard by the enemy in SOME circumstances, potentially tipping the enemy off to their plans, in the same way that chanting and making hand motions telegraphs that a mage is about to cast a spell.
In "The Snow Gate," the demon was described as a grey jelly-like creature. At least, that is how I read its initial appearance. This creature is what I targeted, not the toad (which is also grey).
ReplyDeleteRegardless, you correctly interpreted my target and so neither of us felt the need to make a show of it.
Awesome. That gladdens my heart. I did indeed call it grey; it was originally grey in the first encounter with it, when the party fought the zombrats. I found a reddish pic for the fight just as a convenience.
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