Dead Thinking

By the time Unearthed Arcana was released in 1985, my friends and I had been playing the game for almost six years. I’m sure that for some players somewhere it was a shot in the arm, but for us it was largely a piece of junk, full of typos and badly worded design flaws. While some of the ideas had merit (notably cantrips), most of these ideas had already been put forth by Dragon Magazine and had been incorporated into campaigns by the players themselves.

I bring up the U.A. because it indicates the thinking process of the company that continued to sell products for the game, resulting in three flaws: A) they were perpetually behind in their thinking process, rushing to solve problems that savvy DMs had already solved on their own; B) they continued to perpetuate the original flaws of the game; and C) they were interested most of all in selling the same game over and over again, reworded or “reworked,” as exemplified by the 2nd and 3rd editions and the books released to support them.

I need not discuss the lag in thinking, as this is to be expected with a corporate mentality. Eventually, the game players split into two factions—one of which is clearly visible everywhere on line, which discusses the latest releases with the avid interest of pop fans everywhere. As this group does little thinking for itself, and is dependent on the corporation to feed it, there’s no need for the corporation to be particularly forward thinking. This plays to point (c), in which we see that all you need is a shiny new cover on the same old shit in order to sell product. Car manufacturers have been playing this technique since their inception.

The other group doesn’t buy product. This group doesn’t need prefabricated plastic-dungeon sets, as they know they can make their own with a few power tools and effort. This group doesn’t need another book with sixty pages of character creation, forty pages of weapons, eighty pages of magic items and sixty pages of spell descriptions (with two pages of equipment and one page describing “outdoor adventures’). Thus, this second group has NO IMPORTANCE WHATSOEVER as to the commercial development of the game, which has become the only public face that anyone can see.

Having dismissed points (a) and (c) therefore as mostly uninteresting, let’s discuss point (b)…flaws and failures in the original system.

First and foremost is clearly “alignment,” the brain child of Gygax probably, who felt that players couldn’t have a personality without grafting some standardized graph onto it. I never knew anyone in the first half of the eighties that used it, with the exception of Paladins, forcing them to be “good” in order to limit the character at high level. Later on, I met a string of rather queer DMs who felt that it really fueled character development—though none of them could explain how, and I learned to stay far away from such people as they tended to pocket silverware and such. The public relations problem the corporation was having with the fact that the word “evil” was being used at all in association with a “children’s” game practically guaranteed that alignment would continue to have relevance in the commercial game—along with the clear understanding that parties should be encouraged towards the “good” path.

I have made an unending stream of players happy by merely using the words, “I allow evil paladins.” In fact, I don’t give a rat shit how a paladin behaves…having read Le Morte de Arthur and thus knowing that knights behave in all sorts of ways. Moreover, it’s just common sense. Death and decay are part and parcel with nature; the GODS, having some greater knowledge of the natural world, would have less invested in the notion of mortality than mortals…and thus what care they that paladins rip goodwives asunder and butcher little children? All the more meat to occupy the outer planes and from which to pick an army.

Paladins aside, the problem was made worse with the advent of the Unearthed Arcana, which tried steadfastly to establish character codes, such as those of the Barbarian and the Samurai…characters which, if we were to believe what we were reading, would be run more by the DM than by the players, forced to kowtow to pre-set character traits loaded with punishments for “incorrect behavior.”

Why should I, as DM, suddenly have to behave as the character police every time a puffed-up fighter wants to take a shit in the woods? Or, in the case of the barbarian, wants to behave rationally in the face of extreme danger? It was clear from the first readings that these characters were woefully over-supported with powers and abilities in exchange for the political correctness of their class structures. I saw no way in which this would support the game as designed, so I disregarded the new classes. I took some of their features and sprinkled them among the original classes (without restrictions on their use).

For about six months I heard protests from people wanting to try the new characters. After six months most of these people had had their opportunity to do so, in someone else’s campaign. Interest quickly died.

Free action, I found, was a better sell than character abilities.

Let me take a moment, here, to reflect on another failing in the character system as it stands now—and as it is loved by the commercial advocates of the game: the use of skill points to buy skills to create characters not restricted by class.

I admit, I’m not fully clear on how this manifests itself in the present 3rd edition game. I’ve looked over the tables and read the rules, and I feel confident that the system came directly out of RuneQuest, dressed up of course. I played that system as part of another hybrid, Middle Earth, and hated the system immediately. Here’s why.

It takes very little time to discover the most efficient way in which to use skill points, to create the strongest most efficient players. While there may be other skills available, one has to be an idiot to take them rather than the more practical skills. Our deviating idiot will find his or herself constantly demoted to the second rank in every encounter—because they don’t get +7 when they attack and they don’t cast magics enabling them to fly or what have you. Whatever the system, pretty soon you have twelve characters running in your world who are all exactly the same in their abilities. And don’t say it’s not true, because I’ve seen it happen again and again. If you’re the sort of person who is willing to pay points for useless skills, come on over; I have a used car for sale that you’re gonna love.

So what about character classes? Ah, that gets us down to the nitty-gritty at last. Let’s discuss characters next.

So What If They Win?

There was a disconnect with a comment about the subject of “good players” that I ought to address. When yesterday I said that a player ought to be able to take opportunities when they came, I was not actually making a qualification about good vs. bad players. I was saying a world ought to give opportunities…and if those opportunities exist, players take them. Not just the good players. All the players.

If I have a player who sees the world in terms of taverns and pick pocketing and quests, I recognize at once that it is learned behavior. It’s not the player’s fault for being bad at the game…the player’s experience has taught them to believe this is how the game should be played.

All of my present participants were like that; it took time, but they have all slowly developed into self-propelling beings, working jointly towards their own goals. It took a fair bit of coddling; I actually had one player leave my world because he felt I was coddling too much (occasionally warning them so they wouldn’t kill themselves). I wanted the game to be fun for my players—why wouldn’t it take a little time for them to see how?

So no, I’m not saying be a better player (and let’s put that subject on the shelf). I’m saying, be a better DM and let the players be better players.

To do that, a DM has got to let go of their world. They can’t love it TOO much…or else that love is going to get in the way.

For example: Arkayn, Abner and Aggro stumble across a group of three hill giants and about two dozen gnolls who are serving as underlings. Fortunately, our trio are seventh level; unfortunately, they’ve just had a bad run in with the nearby river rapids and they’ve just emerged wet, shivering and a little worse for wear from some of the rocks they bounced against. So, the DM thinks, this ought to be a combat to really challenge them. Possibly, one of the three might die.

What’s more, the DM has planned this as the last obstacle to keep them from finding Princess Heliose and successfully marrying into the Duke’s family (the Princess is in love with Abner—go figure).

In desperation, Arkayn whips out a wand. A wand that he was given 18 months ago, actual time. That he earned, I might add…its just he’s never used it and he hasn’t a clue what it does. In fact, the DM has no clue either; he wrote a note about it in his diary files and now he has to actually go look that up when Arkayn gives the wand a try.

And what do you know, it’s a wand of paralyzation. With 26 charges.

Well, the hill giants blow their saving throws and it takes no time at all to mop up the gnolls; altogether, the party suffers something like 30 hp damage total. It’s a cake walk.

At this point, MOST of the DMs I’ve known will cry foul: Arkayn doesn’t know the wand’s special secret word (oh please); the wand was wet and doesn’t work properly; there’s a chance that the wand will accidentally paralyze Arkayn; and so on. Anything, in fact, except the recognition that the player reserved that wand until the time came for it to save their ass.

I’ve never been a special word/invoke magic item type of DM. I found long ago it added nothing to the game except for a bit of glee on the part of DMs who really don’t want to give out magic…oh, and it fills up game time with pestering regularity. Fuck it; Arkayn’s a seventh level mage with a genius I.Q. and he’s had the wand in his possession all this time. I think he’s figured out how to make it work when he wants to.

As for other arguments—obviously the DM just doesn’t want his giants and gnolls adventure to fizzle. The party does! They’re glad they don’t have to fight the damn things and probably die. Too bad for the DM who didn’t remember the wand in advance…not every final encounter has to fit the mold. Sometimes its nice to bypass type.

Indiana Jones, big scimitars, etc. But most of the DMs I’ve known would argue that somehow the guy with big scimitar successfully blocked the bullets.

As a DM, you can’t grip your adventure and your plans so tightly that the real point is lost—that the players are, basically, intended to win. “Losing” would have been fighting the giants without the wand, dying and then thinking, “oh shit I should have used that wand.”

Losing shouldn’t be, “The wand doesn’t work cause it’s wet, so you have to fight them.”

That just brings us back to the rat in the maze thing.

To dungeon master this way, I find that what I have to do is get myself out of the picture as much as possible. I make every effort to have no stake at all in what is going on. I’m the referee. I’m not here to decide which side wins.

Let’s face it; I can make the monster side win any time I want. Can’t I?

Seizing the Day

This post has been rewritten to align with my present feelings on the subject, though in reality what I wrote then and what I believe now are almost perfectly aligned. I was just able to phrase it better. The present version is available for a nominal $3 fee on Patreon.

The original post argues that D&D players should determine their own purposes within the game world rather than wait for the DM to provide an adventure. It begins with a party standing on a rain-flooded street in Paris, surrounded by artists, teamsters and urban activity. Presented with the freedom to act, a player may fall back upon D&D conventions: a thief searches for a conveniently exposed purse, while the party heads to a tavern and asks where an adventure can be found.

The post rejects the assumption that providing an adventure is the DM's responsibility. The DM creates and runs the world, but the players must decide what they want and devise their means of obtaining it. Their freedom does not protect them from consequences. Random violence may bring guards, imprisonment and execution, while intelligent action may allow them to succeed in ways the DM anticipated.

To illustrate this principle, the post imagines a character named Jack investigating the price of mustard in Paris. By learning about taxes, merchants, shipments and delivery routes, Jack and his companions could intercept twenty or thirty kegs arriving from Dijon. They might steal the mustard or acquire it on account while intimidating the merchant into silence, then offer continued deliveries to the merchant's customers at reduced prices.

Moving the contraband into Paris could require a stolen rowboat, a horse and cart, fog, evasion of river defences and violence against a guard. The result would be an adventure suitable for first-level characters, created from the players' chosen objective. Success could lead to a smuggling operation, bribed officials, commercial rivals, intimidated suppliers and struggles with competing criminals.

The DM's task is to judge whether the players' schemes can work, introduce logical difficulties and accept unexpected solutions. The DM should neither compete against the party nor protect planned material from being overturned. Foolish choices deserve the world's natural response; clever choices deserve recognition and success. The post concludes that a planned adventure becomes destructive when treated as sacred, because the world should offer opportunities that players can seize for themselves.

Rats in a Maze

The first DM I played with, the one that tossed a basilisk at me on my first night, was probably the worst I ever played with. Let’s call him John, as I want to talk about why I say that and why it had influence on me as a DM.

John was very diligent with his world. He carefully crafted multi-level dungeons, he wrote out speeches for use in the quests he prepared for us, he drafted up towns and castles and pre-rolled all his NPCs. He developed quite elaborate personalities for said NPCs, which he took delight in role-playing when the time came for them to take their part in a given adventure.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Sounds just like the sort of effort a DM ought to make.

Except…

As a player, you could expect to move through every single room of every single level of John’s dungeon, without exception…there were no shortcuts for smart thinking. John designed that room, and he was damn well going to make sure that the room got used.

So, if you were in John’s dungeon, and you came to a place where three hallways branched off, you could be sure that at some point you were going to have to march your way up every hallway eventually. No exceptions.

If John wrote the speech for the Dragon on level six, you were by-god going to hear it.

And as far as accepting the quest in the first place? No choice. When the furtive little civil servant came to speak to you at your tavern of choice on behalf of Meycroft the Munificent, Viscount of Yuer and its Environs, you better get ready to spend the next twelve runnings in diligent service.

Finally, can I just add that ALL the NPCs were as annoying as hell? Especially the doors.

“Doors,” you say?

Yes. As you moved down through John’s dungeon, you would occasionally encounter doors that defined the difference between this level and the next, more difficult level. And these doors were always sentient.

And indestructible. And annoying. To get through these doors, you needed diplomacy.

A typical conversation might go like this.

“Who goes there?”

“A brave party, in the service of Meycroft the Munificent.”

“Who’s he?”

“He rules this land.”

“So?”

“So, we want to pass.”

“Why?”

“Meycroft has sent us to retrieve the Emerald of Rill, the center jewel of his family crest, which was stolen a mere two weeks ago.”

“I never heard of it.” (This from a door, two hundred feet underground)

“We have reason to believe it’s on the other side of you.”

“Reason to believe? I scoff at your reason to believe.”

“Look, we just want to get past and look around.”

“I don’t think so.”

“But you’re a door. You’re supposed to open for people so they can pass from one place to another.”

“I’m also designed to keep people out. I have my defensive side, you know.”

“Wouldn’t it feel better to be useful? To have a purpose beyond protecting people who don’t care about you?”

“Who’s that?”

“The people inside. I bet they don’t even think of you.”

“No, no, you’re wrong! They love me!”

And so on.

This sounds interesting, but believe me, when you’ve talked your way through about thirty of these doors over the course of a year of playing (sometimes twice in one session), you’re ready to leap across the table and kill the fucking DM.

John’s failing as a DM was that, fundamentally, he designed his world to highlight his own importance. We players could have been anybody; we were mere rats in his maze, meant to take pleasure at being able to gather in the elements of John’s genius, revealed one running at a time until the story was given to us whole. Whatever semblance of interaction there might have appeared to be, in fact we could never accomplish anything until we hit on how to do it John’s way. Each door was like an episode of You Bet Your Life, where you were just trying to say the secret combination of words or phrases that would open the door.

There was no sense that the “world” offered a variety of choices…the opportunity to seek out a given group of people, or decide to adventure in a dungeon or in a wilderness. This was predestination…the forerunner to video games like Final Fantasy.

For many players, this is the only way they want to play. It comforts them to be part of a milieu that will deliver a structured setting in which they can participate.

I found it annoying, at best.

I have always felt that D&D, in its best form, provides the opportunity for people to live a life vicariously that they could not do in the real world. That is, if I wish to be Jenghis Khan, or Francis of Assisi, I should be able to make that happen—without being constantly annoyed by the Meycrofts of the world who are living out their ambitions. Fuck Meycroft and his family crest…I’m busy building the world’s largest library or founding a cult of STD-carrying women assassins. If Meycroft needs someone to follow his quest, let him pick an NPC to do it.

The problem this creates for most DMs is that it becomes difficult to plan anything; Free Will means there’s no guarantee the party will enter the Temple of Buwana, even if they’re standing in front of it. I’m of the opinion that the party ought to be able to look at each other and say—after having just killed the couatl defending the place: “What do you think people…show of hands. Who says fuck it?”

But if they don’t enter, that’s ten hours of painstaking work that will never get used. So the DM feels he must have some fairy princess show up and quest everyone (no saving throw permitted).

And there are those out there who would argue a party wouldn’t say that…that the treasure and the promise of adventure would guarantee they would enter the Temple.

Surprise, surprise. I have found that parties, if given the choice, are perfectly capable of walking away from a thing if they’d rather get their treasure and kicks in another venue. Some parties don’t like combating clerics, or mages, or paladins, and would rather choose to fight fighters. All power to them.

To make Free Will possible, a DM must eschew the “pre-created” dungeon. Really, the party doesn’t give a shit anyway…it’s just a big masturbatory fun-time for the DM, who usually gets perturbed when the party shits all over their creative skills anyway. This, more than any other reason, is why modules suck; they have no flexibility.

It does mean that most long time players, the first time they step into my world, find themselves confused. They’re so used to being told what to do, it takes time to realize I’m not going to tell them.

Which is what I’ll discuss next.