Saturday Q&A (may 18)

Orin in Washington State writes,

I'm 33, and I got my first set of DnD 3.5e core books at age 16. I ran games at a public game store for a few years in my early twenties, then ran privately for a handful of friends I had made in high school for a long time. Slowly we all drifted apart, and I have been in DM retirement for about two years now.  What do you do with a Dungeon Master?  Well, I hope you don't quit and go all in on the concert pianist plan. As to 'immediate application' as far as I'm aware there is no one in the DnD sphere doing what you do, with your degree of experience and dedication. Other than JB's blog, yours is the only one in my bookmarks that is still active.  I think just because you're not running a game, doesn't mean you've stopped being a Dungeon Master. You've spent enough time at it that the title still applies even if your current sphere of activity is 'adjacent' to DMing.

I'm hopeful that you'll keep up the piano practice. Maybe once you're confident playing a song and have figured out your recording setup, that can be a youtube thing?  I didn't need the definition of jonesing. Though I can't remember the last time I saw the word, or heard it used in conversation. I've done it, I am finally old.

On May 11th, JB wrote,

"But gaming doesn't have that easy, acceptable "out." You're expected to maintain group coherency...with no real end in sight. You MUST be together, in order to participate in the activity. A person who would flit from table to table, or who shows up only irregularly, is considered "flaky" and, thus, an undesirable participant. Tables want players (and GMs) that they can "rely" on. And, as you say, any flaws/cracks are only going to get worse over time, regardless of the chemistry that initially adhered the group together."

I played for about eight years with the same group. One friend ran his own world for three or four years which I played in, then I ran two campaigns across the same world, each lasting about two years. One set in Greece, and another in Germany, early 1600s.

We drifted into a weird space. After the first few years we only met up for the game. Attempts at other activities outside of DnD fell flat. We had all started as friends first, but somewhere along the way, the friendship twisted and our interaction was only the game. Play was all that remained. Friendship slowly withered. It probably started long before players came to me to voice grievances, and long before I started feeling fed up with certain types of behavior with some people in the group. I was also probably part of the problem, but nobody ever confronted me about what I did that might have upset them so... I don't really know. The only way to find out would be for me to reach out... but I feel no pull to do that at this point.

I tried to keep the game going. I loved making the maps, running the combats, grafting more rules onto the system to fill in for things I wanted and that players wanted more detail on. My last campaign died a slow death. Players cancelled. Occasional cancellations grew more frequent. One person dropped for weeks, others lost interest and took on other priorities. We took a few months-long hiatuses and tried to pick it back up repeatedly. The dominos fell, one by one. Until there were none. For a little while afterward, one person or another would message and ask when the game was coming back, and I'd send out the rounds of messages to everyone. I got a mixture of silence and schedule mismatches. Eventually everyone stopped asking.

I spent a few months revising and rewriting all the house rules with input from one player who I remained friends with. My maps, dice, pencils and books all sit packed away on the shelf. Other than an editing pass on the rules document, I haven't touched much of any of it this year. My hobby time goes into other things. I hadn't really sat down to examine my thoughts on all this in some time. When I feel it's time to run again I'll pack the game bags and go back down to the game store and see where it takes me, I guess.

Stirling in Maine writes,

From The Threat of Poverty:

"Suppose the players can go out and ... have a fine adventure, and ... all that effort isn't enough to pay for three nights at an inn and more than a half dozen meals ... What does the game become? ... Is there something inherently game-breaking about the players agreeing to help a small family plough their land this spring, in return for a hundred pounds of food?  Does it ruin everyone's good time if the bard has to get a gig, today, to pay for the party's lodging tonight?  Or are we just talking about a set of completely subjective assumptions about what the players are entitled to?"

Yes, these are assumptions about what players are entitled to, and, "What is it they're entitled to?" is the wrong question for question for a DM to be asking. The DM should only be asking him or herself what is it that the setting returns for their actions.

It's important for the DM to convey to the players what they can expect to get from the setting by interacting with it in various ways so players can make rational choices, but it's entirely up to the players to decide what they are going after to achieve their goals.

If they don't have goals, there is no game. If the DM assigns the goals, it's a puppet show not a game. The players must decide on their character's goals, but the game is sufficiently flexible that it doesn't matter whether those goals are treasure-hunting, performing good deeds, living an ordinary life in a fantasy world, or conquering that world.

Maxwell in California writes,

I noticed in your latest that you said a chat room would work better for online play than a blog or a wiki. We’ve talked about the shortcomings of the Patreon chat room specifically, but I agree, live chat as the interaction mode, paired with a wiki for knowledge management and forming a structured permanent record, could work well. (Then, of course, I’d want the same kind of live updating for combat maps and other visuals…)

Answer: Maxwell, that updating for combat maps was an ungodly bitch of a job. making the changes, putting in the markers, making a jpg, uploading the jpg ... and half the time, there's some tiny detail that's critical that gets missed and overlooked, so you have to make the jpg again ... and then writing a post explaining the updated map. Each round was a 40 min. job.  I think now, with the Vegas Pro program, I'd do the map as a video and post it to youtube; it would save me the writing time., and all the little combat markers.

Maxwell: So you would move the figures around while voicing over about what happens?

Alexis: Exactly.

Alexander writes,

RE: The Threat of Poverty post. My players once spent about half an out of game year in town, over the course of about twenty gameplay sessions. They inherited a manor house on the edge of a town, which solved their housing costs, though they did not play enough raw time in-game to reach the part where taxes were due. In fact, they never even asked or considered that as they moved in. What did they get up to? They visited every neighboring and local noble to try and figure out where the weakest links were, and if anyone had any family heirloom magic items the party might want to acquire, one way or another. Bribes were passed, alliances and enemies made. Occasional work was had doing small crime, or functioning as bodyguards for people going between villages. Bits of money were made to add to what they already had, and everyone hovered around character level 4 to 6 for most of that time. One player eventually managed to convince the rest to go open a dungeon because he grew bored of playing politics and not cracking enough skulls, and from there they went toward a neighboring area where a war had just broken out. Before that campaign collapsed, as I spoke about via email, the players were in the middle of helping turn the tide of a siege. That chunk of time is about as close as I've gotten to seeing what the game might be like when some of the 'standard' elements of DnD are set aside.

Bob Kile in Ohio answers: Nice story Alexander. On my end, about a year ago it dawned on me (thx to the Tao) that my party wouldn't be finding The Star of India in every treasure hoard. Any gems they found thereafter were unfinished. And to the untrained eye they were just moderately pretty rocks. Until two of the party earned enough KP in Geology to be able to recognize what they actually were. The trade table and availability of a lapidarist suddenly became important.

 _____

Thank you for your contributions.  Not much commentary on my end, but these stand for themselves.  I'm going to be out of town next Saturday, returning either Sunday or Monday; at that time, I'll post whatever I find in my email.

If readers would like to reply to the above, or wish to ask a question or submit observations like those above, please submit to my email, alexiss1@telus.net.  Those giving a $3 donation to my Patreon, https://www.patreon.com/user?u=3015466, can submit questions directly to me in the chat room there.

If you could, please give the region where you're located (state, province, department, county, whatever) as it humanises your comment.

Feel free to address material on the authentic wiki, my books or any subject related to dungeons & dragons.  I encourage you to initiate subject material of your own, and to address your comment to others writing in this space.