Garners and Hovels

Along with the hovel below (and this is the whole page), I've also completed the garner, for those interested.  And I've set up the facilities category page, so keep an eye on it as it populates.

I know I'm supposed to be creating new spells and monsters, but somehow I feel these are the things that have been overlooked for insane amounts of time, and should have been put together as a splatbook 40 years ago.  It's not just a general description of a simply-built house, either ... it's the expectation that I'll be adding other houses, more elaborate houses, explaining various wood and stone constructions, and eventually providing floor plans for dozens of buildings.  Why has this not been done already?

There's little understanding, I think, how this sort of reality — a dangerous word to use — provides a grounding for players who find themselves in the actual game world.  If the fabric of the setting is allowed to endure as a sort of greyish smudge, the players cannot help but assign the same characteristics to every building, every location, every group of people.  Thus there's no sense of place, because the DM wouldn't know how to begin describing the interior of a peasant's house, or remotely explain how farm goods end up appearing on a shelf at Equip-o-Mart, the Adventurer's Convenient Retail Store™.

But, as many rpgers will tell us, the game isn't about "reality."  Sometimes I wonder if that's because it's so damned hard to produce a believable setting that we've lampshaded the whole idea that conveniently permits the lazy DM an excuse to do fuck-all.  Not to mention the company as well.  I can't speak for the fantasist, but I actually live in reality, a place I rather like, the general ignorance of American courts and youtube film critics notwithstanding.  One of the things I like about reality is how gawddamned tactile and real it all is, enabling me to put my coffee cup on its heater, knowing it'll be warm and joyous next time I reach for a drink.

Knowing is a pretty darn good thing.  Much of a players' time in a campaign is spent not knowing a bloody thing, either because the DM has forgotten to explain it, or conceive of it, or because the game itself is a sort of tourist bus the players board until they're let off at the dungeon's entrance to begin their "adventure."  Please, everyone, the bus leaves in three hours.  Please remember the name of your tour company and set your phone alarm to remind you when it's time to come back.

Everything between town and the dungeon is like that stuff a tour guide mutters at the front of the bus, pretending you care.

But, yes, I'm not blind.  I know that hovels and garners are pretty dull things.  It's not like there're going to be adventures like White Plume Garner and the Secret of Salt Hovel.  I get that.  But the reason I take time to fill in these boring details is so you don't have to.  Then, if something someday occurs to you that you need to give the players some kind of rumour or a place to stumble into when coming out of a forest, maybe you'll remember that page about the building that stores grains, fruit and vegetables before they're moved onto town.

That'll be a nifty detail to give your game world three dimensions.