Finding D&D - 4

I look at the time and see it’s getting on to 10 o’clock. I feel a bit weary but ready to continue; the feeling I get round the table is that it's not a good time to call a break — so I finish the coffee I've ignored for the last hour and press on.

Olivia tells me that they're ready to start against the pass and the others agree. John puts Piotr at the front. Consenting, I briefly describe the rugged, barrenness of the mountains... the long, streaked cliffs, dark with traces of ochre and rust; the rock jutting out at abrupt angles; the path growing steeper and the appearance of snow and ice upon the stony surfaces around them. I remind the party of how I had described the mountains as "rugged" when they first came over them, and how little description I had given then. "It was no bother for you, alone, to come down the narrow paths from above; it didn't bother you that the sheer stone walls pressed close around you, except that you feared some beast would attack you."

"I remember," says John.

"It's different now, with the children. Their hands are cold, their footing unsure. They have to use their hands, and the rock surfaces are cold and sharp. Within the first hour, two have received cuts on their palms from climbing."

"Do I have my cure spells from last night?" asks Rick.

I begin to say 'Yes,' but John cuts me off.

"Don't use them even if you've got them. We've got a ways to go; someone's going to fall or something; we'll need healing then. In the meantime, getting cut and bruised will have to be something they just endure." The others agree. I assure Rick that Einrugg has his spells. Susan reminds me to keep going.

Continued on The Higher Path

Finding D&D - 3

John returns from the bathroom and looks around, saying, “The girls are on the deck.” I nod and he takes his seat. “Remind me again; how many children are there?”
“56,” Rick answers, before I can.

“That’s right.”

John sighs. “I wish there were more of us.” I understand that he would like there to be more adults to look after them.

Olivia and Susan, having seen that John’s back, come in, leaving the door open. The sun has set and the eastern sky is deepening from steely blue to azure.

Susan’s eyes are a little red. I make a guess about things she might have said to Olivia, but I don’t ask. I don’t worry. Susan’s seen dark times and she’s made of nails. As she sits down, she starts right in, as though nothing’s happened. “If the haruchai are coming after us, they won’t come from above—they’ll come from below. Right?”

“Yes,” I say. That would make sense.

“And what about beasts up on the pass? Should we expect anything?”

“Probably not. I’d have to roll for that.”

Susan glances at the others. “Since we have five unconscious kids, I suggest we split into two groups. Einrugg and Lisandro stay down here with most of the younger kids, and Chen to help keep them in order. Lisandro can keep watch with her owl. Piotr and I will go up in three trips, carrying the unconscious ones, setting up a camp about a thousand feet below the top.”

“It’ll be freezing up there,” says Rick. Then, to me, he asks, “What’s the altitude, roughly?”

“Well... you can't be sure, but based on the look of the mountains, the plateau you’re on, the part of the world you’re in… you’d estimate the pass is about 8,500 ft.”

Continued on The Higher Path

Finding D&D - 2

Recent events are fresh in my mind. The previous session, they'd climbed down to explore the haruchai lamasery they'd discovered the running before. They'd killed a guard, afterwards finding there were at least thirty monks ... and that they’d imprisoned more than fifty human children. The party could see them inside a large, rhomboid temple, sleeping on a tiled floor, shoulder-to-shoulder. With some difficulty, they slipped inside through a narrow skylight and quietly smothered two other haruchai guards. Piotr had swiftly put down one more monk with a neatly managed back-stab.

"You've successfully led the children away from the lamasery," I explain, "but you don't know if you're being pursued. The oldest children are leading you to Qitai. There are 57 children altogether, aged 4 to 14. Five of the children are unconscious. By now, you've had time to try to learn why they're unconscious, but you have no idea."

"Five?" asks Olivia. "I thought you said three."

"Two have lapsed into unconsciousness since you left the temple, but they did so in the first few hours. It's been 15 hours now, and no others have lost consciousness." The party has to carry the eldest two girls and the boy; the older children can help with the unconscious others. The remaining children are walking, but the party has to stop regularly because it's brutally hot and the children aren’t made for the difficult terrain. It's late in the afternoon now.

I describe their surroundings, using my notes. "The dusty desert floor is covered with patches of three-foot scrub. You can see two miles to the south there are some rocky hills; and in the far distance, you can see mountains so high that snow rests on their peaks. The children tell you that you have to go through a gap in those peaks to get to Qitai, the day after tomorrow.”

"We hurry the children along as best we can," says John.

"I send my owl out to view the country ahead," adds Olivia, speaking for her mage Lisandro. This is Pacheco, a familiar, who can venture outwards as far as a mile away and still allow Lisandro to see through its eyes.

"The way ahead is clear," I say. "The sun moves closer and closer to the horizon as you make the best time that you can."

The day wanes. Finally, the group stops, and I explain that because of the latitude, it will be an hour before full darkness settles in. We talk about the difficulties of managing so many children, nearly all of whom need some kind of help. I give out some of their names for the party to refer to, as they've had to rely upon the older ones in most cases.

John says, "While we're stopped, we try everything we can to wake up the unconscious children. We try dousing them with water, we use spells to lower or raise their body temperature, or see if they react to cantrips." The party starts comparing their magic, trying various means to affect the sleepers to see if anything works. It doesn't.

I explain, "Chen, the oldest boy, tells you that each of the sleeping children were taken away from the group for a while, then brought back. All of them fell asleep soon after being returned. Naran, one of the girls, adds that some of the children that were taken never came back." The party considers this.

"So two of these children were returned just before we rescued them?" asks Susan.

"Apparently," I answer.

After more discussion, the party sorts out how they'll spend the night. Lisandro plans to stay up as long as he can, concentrating the owl's forays in the direction of the lamasery. John suggests that if the haruchai aren't seen before midnight, it probably means they've stopped for the night too. Galatea and Einrugg bed the children between the boulders and the crevices of the outcropping, which the party has chosen for its defensive nature. Then, following Olivia's advice, Rick's Einrugg walks out a few hundred yards from the camp and casts a light spell on a bush. After this, Lisandro's owl concentrates on watching the bush, sure that any following haruchai would head there first. But no haruchai are seen all night.

Susan wants names for the children and I start churning out random names generated from the internet, not giving years for how old they are but rating them as pubescent, pre-pubescent, young and very young, so there are four groups. I use a 4-sided die for this. Painstakingly, but without wasting much game time, Susan starts assigning older children to younger children for the next day's march. I bring up food and this is distributed in full rations for their charges and half-rations for the party. I'm asked, and I estimate that the pass is about 3,500 ft. above them.

"Are the children going to be able to cross it?" asks Olivia.

"It's going to be dangerous," I say.

I roll a die and tell the party that come the morning, there are three children missing. The others don't know where they are. This creates a stir among the players. Voices rising, they assign Einrugg to look after the children. Lisandro's owl is sent off to search in a wide circle. Galatea heads down through the rocks towards a dry wash they passed the day before, while Piotr searches among the higher rocks.
Within minutes, Pacheco the owl finds Altan and Mei in a little crevice, invisible from the ground; they’re quite safe, doing naught but picking flowers. Unfortunately, the girl Mnkeh, who's just five, is nowhere to be seen. I roll a six-sided die to see how long it takes to find her, doing it until I roll a '1.' I mentally tell myself that if I get a ‘1’ within four rolls, Mnkeh is safe. It takes six rolls for me to roll a ‘1.’

As the die hits the table each time, in full view—I don't play with a gaming screen—the players look on with confusion and concern. When I stop, with a ‘1’ showing, the room is silent. "Galatea hears a scream to her left," I say. Galatea launches herself in that direction, and as she reaches the top of the dry wash bank, she sees that Mnkeh is being threatened by a wolf. The little girl is trying to wedge herself into a crack along the far bank. It's not big enough for her.

"I scream, trying to get the wolf's attention," yelps Susan, who then has Galatea leap down the bank. It's ten feet, onto soft loam, and she makes her dexterity check and ends on her feet. The wolf and Mnkeh, I say, are 40 feet away.

Galatea throws her hammer, Susan snatching her d20 from the table. She misses.

I roll a twenty-sided die in full view of the party. It comes up a '17.' A clear hit. The wolf attacks Mnkeh and kills the girl. The shock rolls through the party. Galatea rights herself, drawing her scimitar. Facing off against the wolf, she wins initiative. She swings, hits, and causes 2 damage. The wolf emits a howl and flees. Pacheco sees it and flies along after it. John asks if Piotr can see the owl or the wolf; if it's anywhere near him. I shake my head. I say, "no." The despondency in the party is palpable. The wolf runs and runs, eventually going beyond where Pacheco can watch it.

Galatea lifts the child and takes her back to camp. The party's mood is gloomy, but they try to shake it off. There's some discussion, and they agree there's no way to carry the body back with them. They sacrifice a blanket for a shroud, wrapping Mnkeh in it; Einrugg and Galatea find a place where there's soft loam and bury the body together. The cleric performs a small ceremony. They build a cairn of a dozen rocks, sure they can find this place again with Pancheco's help.

Continued on The Higher Path

Finding D&D - 1

I stretch. My D&D books are laid out on the dining room table. It’s almost evening on Saturday as I slide the vacuum cleaner into its closet, the last step in making the apartment clean. The windows are open and the fans are running. Late September and yet it’s going to be a muggy night for the game. I head for the kitchen where I stretch again before pouring cold coffee into my cup. This goes in the microwave; I punch a minute-forty and wait, running my plans for tonight’s game in my head.

I sit at the table, making notes. The coffee’s good and hot. I think over an idea I have for one of the NPC children, unsure if it’s right, wrong ... or maybe going too far. The scenario might hit Susan a little hard in the gut. Dramatic, though. Believable too.

My thoughts are interrupted by the buzzer. I know it’s Rick before I touch the intercom. It’s Rick, and he’s early. I let him in.

I leave my apartment and go to the stairs, seeing his hand move along the railing down below me. I say, "Hello," and he apologises as he climbs. He's always early and he always apologises. When he's almost at the top, I ask if he wants some lemonade.

"Yes, please," he says, and I turn away and go in my apartment, which is right by the stairs; he follows me inside, taking off his shoes by the door. By the time he catches up to me, I'm pouring his glass full. "I need this," he says. "But I've got to go back downstairs. My truck isn't doing so well in this weather. I need to do some work on it. You don't mind?"

I tell him I don't. I tell him to take the lemonade with him and he declines, finishing the glass in two gulps. Then together, we head out; I pause to lock the door while he starts down. I follow him down the three flights to the street.

Rick, short for Richard, opens the hood and tells me he's inspecting his radiator hoses for leaks, explaining that there's a sweet antifreeze odour he can smell. I nod politely, knowing nothing about cars or trucks. I don’t own a car, don’t drive, don’t know one thing about engine maintenance. But I listen and let him talk, because most times I’m talking and he’s listening. He putters and I drink my coffee, and in a minute or two, predictably, he’s talking about his cleric, Einrugg.
Einrugg has recently reached 6th level and Rick is excited. Some five sessions ago I suggested that maybe Einrugg should start a church, and the idea has just now gotten into Rick's head. He wants to know how much responsibility a church would be, and what's the upside.

I tell him that once the church is built, so long as Einrugg gives a sermon there one week in four—and finds some subordinate priest to carry the congregation on other weeks—Einrugg can count on a stipend from the collection plate whenever he arrives in town. “It’s a steady income and makes you a part of the local community," I say. “You become an important person, you get some status, and if you invest your money in the area, you'll make friends. When you give a sermon, you tell the congregation about your adventuring and you make those stories into parables.”

"How do I do that?" he asks; already, I'm talking over his head.

“Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to actually make up stories. You tell me that your cleric makes a parable, and it just happens. And when the congregation hears what Einrugg has to say, you become a hero. People talk about you. They spread your fame through the kingdom. You get invited to the best events and parties, get to know the king, and everybody respects you. At least, eventually. You still have to run the character through situations before you get there ... but that’s the idea.”

Rick looks thoughtful. "I guess." His hand, feeling along the radiator hose, stops. "There you are, you little devil."

"The leak?"

"Yes. And I don't think I can do anything about it yet.” He moves his hand close to the engine. “Yeah, I’ve got to let the engine cool down completely. I think I've got a patch kit; then I'll need to depressurise the system and drain the coolant. After that, I'll disconnect the hose clamps, remove the damaged hose, and install a new one. Finally, I'll refill the coolant and bleed the system to remove any air pockets."

He's over my head. "Tonight?"
"No, tomorrow." He pauses. “Can I build my church in the center of a big city?”

“Uh, no,” I answer. “Other clerics have thought about that already. Like hundreds of years ago. You have to build your church where there isn’t one.”

"Oh."

“It’s okay. You’re upgrading some out-of-the-way village. You’re doing the local residents a favour. And it’s a smaller pond to start with. No competitors. Plus, the local lord might offer you a piece of land for free. Well, with taxes. But then, you get taxes from the residents on your land, so it works out. That’s another revenue source. And if the lord’s family likes you, they might become members of your congregation. They might ask you to baptise one of their children. Or invite you to a banquet.”

“Hm,” says Rick, cleaning his hands with a cloth. “Sounds easy.”

"Well ..." I start.

I have to be careful. It's a fine line for a dungeon master. Players like things to be easy. But no matter what the payoff ends up being, the bigger the return – the graver the risk. It’s how I’ve been running the game since the beginning – nothing is ever “easy.” I won’t hand Rick's Einrugg the keys to the kingdom without a crisis or two, not for just showing up once a week and having his character give a sermon. Sure, yeah, I’m selling him the upside. I want him to commit to something beyond hacking his way through the game world. I’m deliberately keeping the downside to myself because that’s how selling works. I’m putting a big fat hook in front of Rick’s mouth. I want him to swallow it. Then I can play him to the shore, kicking and fighting while he can’t get the hook out of his mouth, because as a DM that’s how I set up an adventure.

See, I can’t use my authority to force Rick to do anything. And if he does do something and doesn’t like it, I won't use my authority to make him keep going; some dungeon masters maybe, but not me. Still, if there’s something in the adventure that Rick wants, so bad he can’t make himself let it go, then I’ve got him. I can make his game experience a horror show, so long as in the end, if he keeps at it, he gets that thing he wants.

Take the example of his maybe-someday church. Einrugg builds the church, makes friends and gains status ... everything seems great. I let him settle in, give him every reason to believe things are fine. I won't take it away from him. But then a zealot arrives, accusing Einrugg of blasphemy for adventuring most of the time. Next, the lord's son disappears on Einrugg's land, forcing Rick to find the boy alive or face the lord's wrath. There's also a troublesome burial ground that needs clearing and a religious superior demanding answers about heresy at the worst possible time.

These aren't "gotcha" moments, but typical challenges for a cleric running a religious centre in a D&D world. Each adventure is a dilemma, a setback, a catastrophe—but each offers Rick a chance to overcome the trouble and succeed, though he has to dig in and try. Seriously, I genuinely want Einrugg to get his church and status, because it allows me to create profoundly different setups with rich, satisfying, and complex features. If I achieve that, everyone wins and the game becomes better.

My answer to Rick goes, “I wouldn’t say it’s going to be easy.”

Rick has played with me for a few years and knows what that means. His expression is that of trying to decide if I'm bluffing or holding a winning hand. I let him figure it out on his own, keeping my face relaxed, emotionless, revealing nothing. I’m a good poker player.

Susan’s car appears up at the corner. She’s unusually early, too. It’s just twenty after six. We watch as she parks her bruised, long-suffering Mazda 3. Rick turns to his truck and I walk over to greet Susan as she gets out. She gives me a hug. With the door open, she bends over, gathers her character sheets and dice bag from the passenger seat, and hands me a four-pack of two-litre pop bottles to carry for her.

We walk back to Rick's truck, and, holding her stuff, she gives Rick a hug also. We talk a bit about the weather. Susan asks Rick if his truck is okay, Rick talks about his truck and I feel the weight of the pop in my arms. “I’ll take this upstairs,” I say.

"Wait, I'll come with," she says.

Rick thinks the patch kit's in his truck, mixed in with the usual mess of pliers, wire cutters, outlets, switches, circuit breakers, cable ties, connector boxes, dirt, sawdust, and discarded packaging. He starts to look for it. Coffee cup in one hand, pop in the other, Susan alongside, we step up to the apartment’s front door. I set down the pop to fish out my keys, and together we perform a little dance to get us inside with our loads. We climb the stairs. Susan asks after my partner Tamara."

She's started a new art class," I explain, adding that she specifically chose a Friday night so she'd be out of the house for the game. Once upon a time, Tamara used to play. She decided it was too much stress, so she quit. Susan expresses her regret. We get to the top of the stairs, and while I get us into the apartment, I ask about her son Daniel.

"At his grandparents," Susan says. Within the relative cool of the apartment, we go to the large table set up for gameplay in the living room, and Susan picks her usual seat. She talks about Daniel for a while, bringing me up to date. Her son’s unhappy about his teeth coming in. I pour some of her pop into a glass full of ice and bring it to her; I want some of it, but I've promised my doctor, no more dark soft drinks. I drain my coffee cup and make myself a lemonade.

Susan is thirty-one. She runs a 5th level fighter, Galatea. She, and her character, joined our game about two years ago; mine is the first D&D campaign she’s ever been in. She has a natural talent and doesn’t have any of the quibbles that long-time savvy players possess. Susan has been to three gaming conventions since starting my game and she loves them. This is a new world for her, and unlike the other players, she has no childhood memories of gaming to draw on.

"How do you feel about a new player?" she asks from out of nowhere. "There's a fellow I work with; his name's Jason. He says he's been playing 5th edition off and on for years, but he's grown dissatisfied with it. He wants a game with an older rule book."

I'm distrustful. I don't let on, thinking to myself, if he's been playing "off and on," how committed to my game is he going to be? If he's used to 5e, how's he going to feel about my game? But I adopt an interested expression and let her continue.

Jason, I learn, has never played in any "old school" format. Susan tells me he started playing seventeen years ago, in 3rd edition, which he really enjoyed, though he told Susan there was too much die rolling. She asks me what I think that means and I try to explain it.

I explain about feats, and about modifiers, and about how the game tried to solve unclear parts of the earlier versions by assigning die rolls to them, which slows down the game and involves a lot of in-head calculations. "It's a one-size-fits-all problem with the rules," I say. "In the end, no matter what you're rolling for, the process becomes more important than the reasons behind rolling the dice in the first place. And since the consequences for failure are negligible, well, generally... after a while, you just don't care why you're rolling."

Susan doesn't really understand, and shrugs. "Jason's heard about your game and he wants to try it," she says. I learn that he's a year younger than she is. I’m very suspicious now. I'm very suspicious now. On the one hand, I relish the opportunity to show someone how my game works. On the other, nearly everything she says spells bad news. I ask if Jason’s been told that I run AD&D with more than a thousand house rules. I have so many house rules that I have to keep an online wiki just so my players can look through them in and out of gameplay. Susan says that he’s seen the wiki. She doesn’t convince me that he likes it, but she tries. I sigh and say, “So long as he gets it. Sure. Bring him around to the next running.”

She thanks me and I berate myself for causing myself trouble, again. I drink my lemonade, watch Susan unpack her character, and formulate in my mind how to explain my world to a fifth edition player. Susan uses a big folder for her character sheet because she takes lots of notes. She keeps printouts of things she's found on the web, some from my wiki. She likes to come 15 minutes before a game to manage all this, but today her parents had her drop Daniel off early so they could take him out to dinner.

The door buzzes. It's Olivia. She takes a little time to climb the stairs, then comes in the door like it's her own house. She shouts “Hello” while taking off her shoes.

"Where's John?" asks Susan.

"Downstairs, talking to Rick," Olivia answers. She comes around the corner and rolls her eyes. "About cars." She's older than everyone here, except me; she's 35. She has long blonde hair that she ties in a knot atop her head with a leather cord, which matches the leather combat jacket she made herself, as Olivia's a cosplayer. She's married to John.

"Want some pop?" I ask.

"Of course," Olivia answers. She sets a clear plastic storage case on the table, about an inch thick, and opens it. She pulls out papers and scoops out the dice rolling around in the case. I go to the kitchen and pour some pop into a glass, while Olivia asks Susan about Daniel. They talk about the boy and I set the glass next to Olivia. Since everyone's here, I get myself started by opening my laptop and plugging it in. I don't use pencils and paper.

Last month, Olivia and John announced that they’re going to have a child of their own, so there’s lots for the women to talk about, while all three of us get ready. Susan remembers before she had Daniel and they talk about prenatal care, balancing work with early motherhood, sleepless nights … they brainstorm about a future playdate. My own daughter was born 26 years ago and I have nothing whatsoever to say on any of this, as I know when to shut up.

John and Olivia have been married for ten years. John's been playing with me since long before that, but Olivia only started coming along about seven years ago. It was she who introduced Susan to my campaign, when it was agreed to retire the old game and start everyone at 1st level. That’s why no one's above 6th level. We only play every three weeks, and I run a whole other campaign with different people. I don't mind that this one happens less often.
Olivia has a 5th level mage, Lisandro. She lives and dies for spell use and is something of a classic girl-bear when it comes to her playing style. In real life, she’s a teacher, the sort I rarely got in school. Let’s just say she never insists that everyone "just get along." She respects conflict, loves Shakespeare, and at the same time thinks it's boneheaded to teach it to high school students. She breaks rules. We get on fairly well.

Slowly, the subject gets around to D&D, with Olivia asking me about spells. Both Lisandro and Galatea are close to leveling up—they might tonight—and Olivia is eager to acquire another 3rd level spell for her character. I make suggestions and she trusts that I have her best interests in mind. I do. As with Einrugg, I want Lisandro to survive and do well. The way I see DMing, my agenda only includes making this as hard and as complicated as I can, without deliberately stopping anyone from progressing and getting stronger.

The buzzer rings again. Susan sees I'm busy and gets up, goes to the intercom, pressing the door open. This time, it's both Rick and John. Rick has finished with his truck and wants to use the bathroom; I tell him there's a bar of heavy-duty soap in a pail under the sink. John waves a greeting and asks if there's coffee. "I finished it," I say, and he says he'll make more. Casually, he rifles through my kitchen as though it's his, knowing where the coffee and grinder are. My place is his place.

I’ve known John for 16 years, since he was a 17-year-old kid. He met me when I was managing a coffee shop, working fourteen hours a day. He came around two or three days a week, mostly when it was quiet, and we'd play chess over the counter. Back then, he was in his second year of university, majoring in journalism. We’d talk about writing, politics, history ... and eventually D&D. I'd already been playing nearly twenty years. I didn't have a game then. I was on hiatus. John had never played. Yet we could still talk about it.

I began running a game about a year later. John was front and centre at my table and has been ever since. He met Olivia eleven years ago and he convinced her to join, not me. I can smell the coffee brewing as he appears, taking his seat between Olivia and the last empty chair. He unfolds his character sheet and flattens it out. This is his whole character, Piotr. The rest he keeps in his head.

Piotr is just the latest in a long list of thieves. And for John, it’s all about the backstabbing. Yes, he'll go that extra bit to get a nice piece of gear if one's there. Now and then he comes up with a cunning plan, the sort that works most of the time. He's a genius as a strategic thinker, but he holds back because he doesn't want to run other people's characters. None of those are, however, what he really likes. For John, the game is that moment before dropping the die, when he's all set up to put his sword between the enemy's armour plates … and then having that die come up right. He just loves it. And he will move heaven and earth to set the moment up.

I don’t judge.

Rick comes out of the bathroom and says hello; he's carrying a familiar red backpack, which he sets on his chair for opening. John pours his dice into a pool on the table about six inches wide and starts sorting them as though he's picking out the best seeds for planting. Rick sets a folder on the table, adding a box for his dice. Every die he owns is either orange or yellow; he adds a white eraser, two pencils, and a pencil sharpener.

They're talking among themselves now but I've stopped listening. I'm getting my game face on. I look down the checklist for tonight's running, a collection of facts about a desert town on the edge of desolate mountains, called Qitai. Though isolated, an overland trade route through Qitai brings travellers from distant lands in both the east and the west. I open a map on my desktop, the screen duplicated on a second monitor everyone else can see. They fall into a discussion about the map, though they already know where they are and remember what's happening.

John kisses Olivia before fetching his coffee. Rick drops his bag on the floor and gets comfortable in his chair. Susan asks how far they are, right now, from Qitai, and I tell her, "Two days." Rick asks if anyone needs to be healed. They start counting up how much food they have. I flip through a few more files, not minding that the players can see what I'm looking at. I open a notebook next to my computer and read.

I rise to refill my lemonade and Susan says, "I'm down nine hit points. I thought you used your healing last session."

"I did," says Rick. "I've still got a potion."

I hear Olivia saying, "Don't waste it," as I'm opening the fridge. I stop listening, knowing I've got to concentrate. Pouring from the pitcher, I heave a breath and steady myself. A couple more minutes left. Nothing to do but be in the headspace. I sip my drink, not hurrying back to my chair. I feel the coolness of the glass in my hand, the hum of the refrigerator. For no reason, I take a walk up the hall to my study, just to be alone a minute or two.

I come back to the table and sit down. I listen but I don't speak. I lean back, watching the players ... and after a minute or two, they turn silent. I don't have to tell them I'm ready to start. They know.

Bookwriting

On September 12, fifty-five days ago, I began writing a series of posts that amounted to an entry-level university course, with 39 posts consistent with 13 weeks of education and three classes per week.  This "200-level" D&D course discussed player behaviour, game preparation, personal development and worldbuilding.  The total of all 39 posts amounts to 63,000 words.

This is book-length... and so, it's my intention now to return to the material privately and rework it for this purpose.  I'm considering the title, "Foundations of Dungeon Mastery 201."  Though that isn't finalised; it's a bit puffy.  I don't want to call it "RPG 201," which is fine for a blog tag but unfortunately not a book.

The concept lends itself to other books in the same vein.  I'm considering another series of posts, Session Management 301, which would be entirely about running the actual game in real time.  I've designed what the 39 posts would cover, and yeah, it's very esoteric stuff.  The goal would be to write what's never been written; specifically, to address direct things that players say, that DMs ought to say, using examples like a laboratory in order to deconstruct what it is to speak, answer questions and engage with game material moment-by-moment.

Before then, I'm going to beginning a series of posts within the next few days, in which I intend to write out, fully, my concept for the book I've never been able to finish, Finding D&D in the Dark.  I intend to provide the posts on The Higher Path, while giving nibbles here.

The book, Using ChatGPT to Write Fiction, is now available on Lulu.

Conclusion, Post 39

We've come a long way through the complexities and challenges of dungeon mastering, moving from the foundational aspects of handling player behaviour and managing the social dynamics of the table, through self-improvement as a DM, to finally addressing the deeper elements of worldbuilding. Each layer we've examined has shown that running a D&D campaign isn't a set of techniques or shortcuts, but a disciplined approach that demands both introspection and practical growth.

Early on, we identified the importance of reading player behaviour: seeing the game as more than a set of mechanics and learning to recognise how bad elements of the game's design contribute to interpersonal tensions, motivations and anxieties that the players bring with them. From the pre-game socialising to the need to made adjustments mid-campaign, this awareness is essential. It's what allows a dungeon master to foster an environment where people don't just insert their individualism but engage in a shared experience with real emotional stakes. Through this lens, the game becomes a framework that players can rely on, where trust and camaraderie build naturally over time.

Self-improvement is a vital part of that progression. The DM's growth is defined by a willingness to learn and discover, to try new things, to face difficulties and to question the approach that frameworks like the rules and traditional adventure building prescribe. The DM is invited to constantly refine, to learn what works for the group at hand, and to appreciate how flexibility in oneself and others contributes towards making a good game. "Improvement" isn't about doing things "right" but about gaining the clarity and consistency necessary to facilitate a game that players want to come back to, session after session.

Continued on The Higher Path

Proficiency & Expertise

These worldbuilding elements aid in the creation of a structured approach, but the manner in which competent dungeon masters still often resembles a pre-written module. Though working within a self-created world, the actual events tend towards predetermined structures and expected outcomes, because this is what the DM knows. Breaking free from this perspective is by no means simple; the rigidity of the module is reassuring, as having the players upon a guided path narrows the creative decisions they're likely to make. Though we become more invested in the outcome as we become competent, and more willing to afford players greater agency, we shouldn't be surprised to find we'll yet return, again and again, to the scaffolded narrative of a module.

This is a question of the trust we have in our abilities. Most competent DMs haven't yet learned how to think beyond surface definitions for the game's rules and setting, nor how to really understand why things function as they do — how, for example, a river affects regional alliances or how cultural tensions persist even without a clear, rational origin.

For a long time, we must give ourselves considerable allowances on this point. Wanting the world to feel more natural and open does not mean that we can snap our fingers and suddenly see past the surface definitions of things. Grasping why things function as they do takes time and insight. Trusting ourselves to choose the right encounter at the right moment, or to roll comfortably with the party's choices even when those create problems with regards to the campaign's flow, takes time. Building the ability to create organic, moment-to-moment responses and to trust our flexibility requires experience.

Continued on The Higher Path

History

Of all the elements that contribute to a campaign's worthiness, the setting's history is perhaps the most elusive and least straightforward in terms of its value. Many dungeon masters attempt to create a history that meticulously contextualizes every town, landmark and social structure, only to find themselves overwhelmed by the impracticality of such an approach. Others, seeking simplicity, offer an "illusion" of history — fragmented, localized pieces introduced as players encounter specific peoples or places. Yet this fragmented history often reduces itself to a series of adventure prompts that lack continuity; these isolated snippets are easily discarded or forgotten, as they have no lasting significance within the campaign.

An attempt to convey history in broad strokes may reduce the workload, but ultimately, it often serves only as anecdotal support for the setting's geography, culture, governance or economy. While history may offer a nice aesthetic flavour, these other subjects, already discussed, stand fine on their own without history's window dressing. This isn't enough of a reason for history to be placed alongside these others; it must justify its presence in our efforts by providing a distinct, separate purpose for being... otherwise, we are wasting our time giving history any attention at all.

Before doing this, we must understand what history is. From our viewpoint after the passage of many technological changes, we tend to see history as cause-and-effect, as something that got us from there, four centuries ago, to now. But this is not the viewpoint that a medievalist fantasy character has. A farmer of upon the Loire in the time of the Merovingians is indistinguishable from one at the time of the Romans, once again separated by four centuries. Ordinary Chinese fisherfolk cast their nets over the same water, in the same way, for more than a dozen centuries. Likewise, a Hindu knelt upon the same steps, to the same gods, in the same way, for that time also, casting the same shadow upon the same stones. The pattern of a prayer carpet on the saddle of a Bedouin in the 15th century could be found on any prayer carpet of his people in the time of Fatima. The world did change, but marginally. Wars, when fought, were waged between the elite. Borders, when they changed, mattered only to a tiny part of the populace. For most, the world was the world, decade after decade, as we aged and died in the same clothes as our parents and their parents before them.

Continued on The Higher Path

Materialism & Trade

As with other aspects of the developed setting, trade and available resources play a significant role in defining the campaign's character and tone. Depending upon the civilisation we desire, a world's economy might be so backward as to make bartering the primary form of exchange, or it may be highly advanced, allowing for widespread excavation and cultivation of the world's resources, all of which must be transported and then processed in vast water-and-wind driven boroughs. How these things work in our setting defines what player characters can purchase and how much; it defines how much wealth presently exists in the form of property, warehoused goods and trafficked materials in motion. We must choose whether the players are almost certainly rich compared to their lesser, rustic peers or mere flotsam drifting in a sea of incomprehensible affluence. The scale between these two extremes represents how much labour we'll have to give to the setting we desire, as well as the players' sense of agency and place.

The first problem is always the equipment the players are free to purchase, specifically what kind and how much. In a setting with limited resource access, the players are incentivized to strategize, negotiate and make alliances with key figures who control local supplies. A good sword might be precious if the world lacks metal; players might have to make do with lesser tools much of the time, with a fighter being decimated by a weapon's breaking. On the other hand, in an advanced economy where resources are abundant, a player may buy twenty swords, each with special characteristics; some dungeon masters allow the purchase of magical items, so that players who want to become more powerful need not strive and strain to increase their personal power. This of course depends on the individual; personally, my feeling is that players should suffer for every gain, that nothing of real worth should ever be gotten easily and that loss is something that should be keenly felt, if anything the players buy is to have any value for them. This fosters the players' sense of investment in their characters and the world, making their victories feel earned and meaningful.

Nonetheless, we must always consider equipment to be at the forefront of the player's engagement with the world. Treasure loses its lustre if there is nothing to purchase after a few sessions of hard adventuring. Material wealth helps define the character for the player, who must be free to purchase garments, tools, special foods and all kinds of desirable things ranging from a puppy to the emblazing of a character's heraldry upon a suit of armour. Often, the more mundane the better; a player can become easily and irrationally attached to a simple clay mug, merely because it was purchased when that character started out in the campaign. When, later, the mug is crushed under a dragon's foot, the player might feel that more keenly than the loss of a magical sword, though the latter is obviously more useful. It doesn't matter that the mug is imaginary; everything about the game is. As such, when looking over an equipment list, players are apt to think about what they want to own for its own sake, as well as what they need for mere game purposes.

Continued on The Higher Path

Political Authority

With the standard adventure format, authority figures are often reduced to roles that either enable or obstruct the party's intentions. "Good" authorities are those who summon the party to undertake quests that serve the realm’s welfare, while "bad" authorities are those endangering it, whom the party must thwart to prevent disaster. Both characterisations are shallow, functioning as simple devices to drive the party in a certain direction; they have no motivations or complexities of their own. They have no other foreseeable purpose in the campaign. Little consideration is given to the actual duties these figures fulfil, from the monarch of the realm down to the humblest guard — all of whom, in fact, form the backbone of society's organized, rational governance.

This becomes a problem when the players themselves reach a stage where governance is something they have an interest in assuming. Up until then, however, no premise in the campaign has existed to explain what these figures do as functional agents, or how, exactly, a set of player characters become such persons. All we've seen are archetypes serving as narrative props... but in a living, sustainable campaign, what we need are multifaceted individuals who can become pivotal allies, mentors and equals with real, deeply personal stakes in the day-to-day stability of their society.

We must revise our perception of authorities within the campaign, recognising that they need not be eternally cast as that which we must defy. A land, a people, a collection of towns and villages, require people to manage and organise the vast and difficult demands of maintenance, defence, legality and order... and discard the juvenile notion that such people are inherently evil, selfish and vain. For the most part, they're not; they're simply persons who have risen in the hierarchy according to a mix of capability or inherited responsibility, doing the best they can, bearing up against impossible difficulties, without the resources necessary to automatically succeed in their thankless responsibilities.

Continued on The Higher Path

Culture

Culture is a wide scale concept that describes the customs, artworks, social institutions and evidence of a society's achievements — as well as the assembly of laws and expectations that define acceptable behaviour among a given people. Designing such from scratch would be an act of folly. We are products of our own culture; everything we do and say reacts to the culture we were raised in, not to mention the culture to which we're trying to adapt. Should we attempt to write a narrative that steps outside this norm, we might succeed because we control every action and every statement that the characters within take and say... but to expect players to collaborate on such a venture, given the restraints of their culture, is both unrealistic and a recipe for disaster.

Therefore our goal is not to design a culture, but to perceive how the culture of our game setting must function so that the players can engage with it intuitively. We must start by understanding how the setting has to reflect the players' core beliefs and values. These values aren't arbitrary — they have been imposed upon the actual human beings playing. Their fundamental truths about survival, morality and success, if discounted, will produce conflict and resistance, no matter how earnestly we want them to adhere to what the culture of our game setting stands for. We must discard any notion that the campaign stands apart in this regard, merely because it is fictional; the instincts of the players are what they are; if we as dungeon masters wish to have any understanding of player psychology, this immutable fact must be accepted.

This should be explained to the players... not in terms of what the players believe, but rather in what the non-players of our setting consider to be cultural norms. We should tell the players that persons of industry and property, outside of criminals and those with political power, are reliable, loyal and honourable, because it would not occur to them to be otherwise. We should explain that we're giving our word on this, because we want the players to perceive accurately the world they visit... that an ordinary grocer, farmer, teamster, boat pilot or even a soldier's word can be taken as an utterly authentic representation of what that person believes, in their heart.

Continued on The Higher Path

Geography

 An open, player-driven world requires a geography that goes beyond a simple map of the setting. There has long been debate about whether to create a large-scale map, which can be expanded over time, or a small-scale map representing an entire continent, with detailed sections added as needed. However, these choices place too much emphasis on the map itself, overlooking the larger challenge of building a consistent, reliable geography that shapes the world the players are meant to inhabit. A coherent geography is a setting where physical features — like mountains, rivers, cities, and climates — are arranged and considered in how they affect cultures, trade, politics and daily life, in a manner that feels natural and interconnected.

For example, a mountain source provides water an minerals, supporting mining towns; these represent resilient cultures who are used to isolation and are protective of their goods. Where the river reaches the plains, its water enables agriculture, creating prosperous farming towns whose culture was likely founded by migrants long ago; more friendly, these centres are interconnected by roads and seasonal festivals. Further along, the towns along the river course grow fat and rich upon trade, with historically rooted rivalries over control of river access. The port city at the mouth of the river is filled with foreigners, a considerably greater diversity of trade and evidence of past cultures stretching back a thousand years.

In fact, the nature of each settlement is predetermined by the existence of the river, which predates any form of culture. The river's size, course and surrounding soils are determined by the topography; if the land it traverses is mostly hard rock with sparse trees, few would settle there. If the river's slope is too shallow, it might form fetid swamps or braid into multiple channels. In a frigid climate, the river would freeze over with a shortened growing season affecting the agricultural potential. In hotter climates, the river could wind through deserts or dense jungles. Each adjustment in topography, vegetation, wind patterns or hydrology creates a distinct type of river and in turn a unique culture, trade system and history.

Continued on The Higher Path