Gambit

Here I'm caught between letting the reader see the narrative unfold as a player and seeing it as a dungeon master.  These are very different, and it must be understood that because nothing has happened, our perspective as the players are in town is nothing more than a possibility of how events might unfold.  Still, most of what we've based the adventure on thus far are things that have already happened: the princess has been lost in the dungeon; the noble's father has gone to find her and been lost; the players are reassured to have found the right dungeon, and the ring.  Yet all hinges upon the willingness of the players to go back — and we've just asked them not to.

A "gambit" is a move that sacrifices something of value in order to gain advantage.  In chess, a piece is sacrificed in order to force the opponent into a weaker overall position.  DMing players with free will and the right to set their own agenda requires a certain degree of manipulation — with the understanding that, like in chess, the manipulation is done entirely in the open.  We're not manipulating the players by cheating on die rolls or changing the number of monsters behind a screen; we're blatantly creating a situation in which there are good reasons for the players to continue the adventure, and there are good reasons NOT to.

Why is this an advantage?  Each time a human being foregoes good sense in the pursuit of something he or she wants, it increases that person's willingness to withdraw in the future.  This is called the sunk cost fallacy.  The player weighs the mention of "there be demons" against "we already got treasure and experience" from the location and decides, "the demons are probably not that bad and anyway, more treasure."  This depends greatly on how much inflection our voice carries when we physically speak the word "demon" during that discussion with the noble.

It may be hard to believe for some that DMing might come down to how a single word is spoken, but it does.  If the word is sold too hard, if it puts too much doubt into the mind of the player, the whole set-up might come tumbling down as the players say, "Demons?  No way."  One cannot let one's voice betray our desire to have the players, of their own free will, continue to invest in the adventure they've already started.  This word, and any word that pushes the players not to go, must be said in a manner that causes the player to dismiss words and self-imagine themselves overcoming all obstacles.  Thankfully, much of the time D&D players tend to be bloody-minded about doing things they want to do, especially when an NPC urges otherwise.  Nevertheless, we must be careful.  We must introduce dangers without embellishing.  This lets us push our pawn right into open danger, while keeping our face rigid when the player snatches up the pawn, sure they've made the right move.

Remember that the players, before they left the dungeon, found evidence that there was another dungeon further down.  The players have been thinking about that all this time; all through getting back to town, all through buying their stuff, all through the conversation with the noble about his father.  This is one good reason for stretching out some of the details about following the road that gets back to town, and not jumping from place to place using rapid cuts.  We want the players to muse about that deeper dungeon:  What is it?  How deep does it go?  How much treasure is down there?  All this urges the players to take that pawn, even as we have the noble put it out there, telling them not to take it.

Now, as long as we have the players in town, let's not let them go quite yet.  Let's play another gambit first.

Going back to this post ... at the time, my only thought was to throw out possible hooks as examples of what we might invent that would lead the players somewhere.  When I wrote the following, I had no plans of how precisely it would be employed, only that something might be done with it:

Hey, there's a father walking along with two little girls, all three of them singing together, as they head off to town. The party doesn't know it, but not long after they get back from the dungeon, they're going to see that same father standing on a scaffold, inches from death, as a town clerk asks if anyone's willing to pay for the father's bond to spare his life.

Let's put this into our story — only, remember, only the first sentence has been established.  At the time the players were on their way to the dungeon, we described the father and his girls; that's all, except we might have described what the father was wearing.  At the time, we might have intended to put him on a scaffold, and to ask the crowd for a bond ... but those things haven't happened yet.  It's a good idea, though; how can we insert this into the player's narrative thus far?

Before answering that question, I need to dig into patterns of creativity.  One technique of fiction writing is to imagine a situation that's extraordinarily mundane — boring.  And then to perceive some manner in which that commonality can be spun on its head into something dark.  We've seen it hundreds of times in films and television, but perhaps we don't see it as a pattern.  The writer describes a puppy playing in a yard while the owner brings out a lawn chair and stretches out in the sun.  The puppy gets interested in the flowers, while the owner chats on the phone.  The puppy begins to dig in the flowers and the owner shouts for the puppy to come over, and it does ... and in the puppy's mouth is a human finger.

There we are, mundane to dark in an instant.

This techique asks the creator to drift into less than savoury aspects of life, and it has consequences; having done this for years and years myself, whenever I go anywhere, I often find my imagination spinning out scenes of spontaneous murder, people suiciding themselves in front of commuter trains, car accidents and so on.  No matter how prosaic a scene might be, my thoughts routinely drift into some unspeakable horror I can't share without ruining someone else's day.  It can be a bit maddening — but it serves me very, very well as a DM and as a writer.

Some reading this went to the same place I did when I mixed "puppy" with "flowers."  Others didn't get it until the last two words.  It speaks to how willing we are to consider elements of the world that we don't normally see, except on the news.  Dramatic conflict, however, is bred very well by this kind of explicit darkness.  The game's dungeon, for example, thrives on it.  The story of the noble's father questing off to setting his demons does as well.  D&D lets us gird on weapons and fill backpacks with tools so we can face our metaphorical demons without actually getting hurt.  That's it's appeal.  It's the same appeal that drives shows like Breaking Bad or The Wire.  We get to indulge in horrific situations while sitting safe and sound in our living rooms.

All right, so what do we know about this father and his daughters?  Because until now, we've invented nothing about them, but we're already hemmed in somewhat by things we've said.  They were met on the road in broad daylight, so the father isn't a day-worker.  He isn't a labourer or a farmer, else he'd be working.  It might have been a Sunday, but this relies upon the existence of Christian ethic in our game world; there's one in mine, but maybe not in yours, so let's discount that.  Rationally, he might reasonably be self-employed; this could mean he's an apothecary or some kind of artisan like a goldsmith or a maker of precision tools.  He's probably not a brewer, a stabler, an innkeeper or any other role that requires the investment of large amounts of time.

I'm going to make him a schoolmaster.  There were schools in the game's time period but they weren't as rigorously scheduled as now; plus, if it's summer, many of the potential students are learning their father's trade.  A schoolmaster is fairly common, not that wealthy, and someone good with children.  But naturally the players know nothing about this yet.

Let's keep the potential hanging.  It's a good twist from light to darkness, and it's bound to get the players attention.  And even if the players can't have their heartstrings twitched by the thought of two orphaned little girls — which would describe about 90% of the male players I've run in the last 40 years — it's still something we can play on.

We can freely assume that if the schoolmaster's being hung, it must be for some reason.  My original proposal was for debts: which the party could pony up as a way to save the man's life.  It's a bit of a harsh penalty for debts, however, and a hard sell narratively, so let's toss that.  We might attribute the hanging to some capital crime, but if the schoolmaster has committed murder or theft, it's a harder sell to make the players care.  They'd be in their right to say, "Well, those crimes carry a death penalty for a reason, and the world — and the girls too — are probably better off without him."

Let's shelve the reason for a moment.  Consider secondly how we get the players to witness this situation.  Just now, they're sitting with the noble.  We could have them leave, and as they head back to their inn, talking about whether to return to the dungeon, we could have them stumble across the hanging scene.  Yet, I think we can do better.

Though I'm describing this as a DM piecing together a scene for the game, I should come clean and explain that I'm actually doing this in a way that gives you the player's perspective.  You're learning each element of the narrative as the players would — that is, chronologically.  But I must tell you that I've put a bunch of different parts of the overall setting together that I'm holding back, which connects the man on the scaffold, the noble's father, the princess and what's in the dungeon all as one grand adventure.  I promise, before this post is done, you'll be told what those connections are.

Getting confused?  I'm sorry.  Dungeon mastering at this level is a complex arrangement of thoughts all vying for importance at the same time.  We have the unanswered question of why the man is on the scaffold; we have the unanswered question of how the players learn about it; and before I can answer those questions, I still have one detail to discuss.

IF the man is to be hung, it's in the noble's town; this means that, though it's the noble's retainers performing the execution, it's still being done according to the noble's wishes.  This is the same noble that just showed concern for the players, suggesting the noble might be a friend the players might be able to count on in the future.  How would it look if the players suddenly took the side of the schoolmaster against the noble's intentions?  That's a damn hard sell, and as a DM I wouldn't expect the players to do it.  Like it or not, the players would just stand their and watch the schoolmaster die, because any other course of action is untenable.  And THAT makes the whole scene a waste of time.  At best, it might give some additional information about the noble — that he's the sort to kill a common schoolmaster with two little girls at a glance — but this is pretty much a garbage characterisation that adds no dimension to our narrative or the players' thinking process.

So, let's throw out the capital crime idea, and let's throw out the players stumbling across the execution at random.  They're both garbage ideas and we can definitely do better.

These words, "I can do better," are the heart's blood of creativity.  We have to say them, we have to believe it, and then we have to sit and think and think and think on how to do it.  Burton Rascoe is famous for the very dated quote that goes,

"What no wife of a writer can ever understand, no matter if she lives with him for twenty years, is that a writer is working when he's staring out the window ..."

It's not true.  My wife and partner Tamara is completely aware that when I'm sitting on a bench, taking a shower, laying in a bath, watering the lawn with a hose or playing a video game, I'm working ... which is something I do all the time.  Last Thursday I laid in the dentist chair for the second crown I've received this year — my teeth are much better, thank you — and I spent the whole time as he fitted the crown puzzling out a section of my working hardcover book.  I "write" constantly ... and part of the underlying principle of that statement is the argument that if I think the words, "I can do better," it means I'm going to stand in front of a window for as long as it takes until I do better.  No ifs, ands or buts.

The worst words a writer can ever say is "That'll do."  No, it won't.

So let's do better.  Last night, not quite asleep yet but working on this post, I stumbled across the connections I hinted at above.  Instead of having the dialogue with the noble and the hanging be separate events, let's have them be part of the same scene.  Be my player for a bit and I'll explain.

A herald rushes into the room at the right moment (when all the real information has been given to the players) and says, "Your Grace, they're hanging the schoolmaster!"

His Grace leaps to his feet angrily and shouts, "My sword!"

Now, remember — at this point, the players have no idea who the schoolmaster is.  The scene has been dramatically pre-emted by new details and naturally the players will be interested.  Even better, however, is that the noble hasn't given them leave to go; and there are retainers all about to ensure the players stay and hear out the whole scene.  This is well within our rights as DM, so long as we don't abuse the players when they obey the setting's rules (those being, that nobles have powers that must be respected).

As the players follow, and the retainers follow them, the noble runs down the stairs of the keep into the bailey below (that is, the courtyard), where sure enough the man the players saw on the road is on the scaffold, "inches from death."

The noble — let's give him a name, Rudrick — shouts "STOP!"  Silence follows, except for a small weasel-faced fellow dressed like a scribe who steps forward and says, "This man, Marcus Twilling, is to be put to death in the name of the King."  At this point, we want to pause and explain to the party that they're seeing the courtyard is filled with soldiers wearing two kinds of livery.  Half the soldiers are retainers of Rudrick, and the other half are retainers of the Royal family.  Aha!  Conflict.  And a man's life hangs in the balance.  Played well, the players are rivited.

"I have given this man sanctuary," says Rudrick.

"Sanctuary has been denied," says the weasel.

"I rule here, not the king," says Rudrick.  And at those words, a hundred weapons are drawn, first by Rudrick's men, then by those of the King.  Stand-off.  And though the players have no part in this, they're here.  Trapped inside a castle.  Where it looks like there's going to be a free-for-all.  And if there is one, the players will have to defend themselves, since when a war breaks out, there are no safe places to hide.

What we want here is a tempo.  Here's one of  favourites on film, directed by Norman Jewison of Fiddler on the Roof and Jesus Christ Superstar.   This is 1966's The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming.  The scene runs about seven minutes altogether and I'm not going to explain it, nor spoil how it ends.

After the tempo in the courtyard, some sane third party — the commander of the King's forces, most likely — shouts that the man should be let free and not hanged.  The King's men stand down.  Rudrick's men stand down.  The party stands down.  The soldiers file out and we describe the schoolmaster being let off the scaffold and the noble takes the players aside.  The noble has reason to explain to them what's just happened, because this scene directly connects to what Rudrick's been talking about.

He explains that years ago, the present Royal family declared that the princess lost in the dungeon, that Rudrick's father tried to return, was investigated by clerics through divination and was determined to be a witch.  The interpretation varies, but she was either a witch all along, or she became a witch after she was lost.  Either way, this was seen as evidence that the princess's whole family line needed to be eradicated, and for years there have been burnings and hangings of her ancestors, her siblings and her cousins.  And it's believed now that the schoolmaster is a bastard child of the princess also.  So the edict says he must die.

The noble does not believe the interpretation of the clerics, but can do nothing about it, except to protect people on his land.  He promises to send the schoolmaster to a far away place, and again begs the party not to return to the dungeon.

Now I'll come clean about the DM's point-of-view, with an understanding that this will spoil the dungeon somewhat for those who have been reading this series because it feels like they're playing in the game.

The Princess, Elissa, didn't go to the dungeon alone.  She was charmed by an evil tree spirit, a dryad, who took her to the dungeon to pay off a debt owed to a wicked nymph that dwelt in a small lake located hundreds of feet below the dungeon's entrance.  Once upon a time, the nymph did the dryad a favour and the debt was paid.  The princess was then transformed into a freshwater "lake witch," living in the same lake.  There she remains, her heart poisoned, full of evil, surrounded by scores of watery beasts as her perpetual servants.

Rudrick's father, Ergrund, went to retreive the princess, but by the time he and his party reached the lake, and did battle with the nymph, whom they killed — leaving only Ergrund alive at the end.  He was too late to save the princess.  Elissa had been transformed; and as Ergrund was in love with her, he could not bring himself to kill her.  Instead, he allowed himself to be seduced by her, where upon she drowned him and drew the life force out of his soul.  Dying, unburied, deep in a place of great evil, he became a member of the undead, a skeletal warrior ... so that now he protects the lake witch in perpetuity, as neither can die so long as they go on living within their evil lair.

That's what the party faces, ultimately, though they know nothing of it.  And it's on the difficulty of a low-level party overcoming these monsters that I'll discuss with our next post.