The Effing Paladin

This effort to teach AD&D in a linear fashion has hit a snag with the paladin.  First, it took me three passes to find the right voice for explaining alignment, which cannot be dodged around if teaching the class as it's written. Next, discussing the paladin's codes proved less than ideal, and the consequences for breaking those codes as well. Then that business with the paladin's warhorse that I discussed with the last post.

And now, the arbitrary rules about what a paladin can use as magic equipment, what a paladin must do with their money and who a paladin must associate with.

What seems to happen is this: I begin by intending to describe the rules as written... but these are, in fact, full of holes, since the words don't actually wander all around the subject.  A good example for this is the "henchman," which to the best of my recollection is never described as anything but a hireling. The reason for the name, what it means to "hench," what the person is hired to accomplish, what their role is, or what they are to the player is not discussed. Only how to find them, their statistical details and their loyalty. Why a henchperson is even allowed is not discussed either. This sort of hole, where we spend a page and a half discussing everything about the rule except why it exists, can be very frustrating.

Then, as I drift into pointing out the details of the hole, so the reader will understand what's not being said in the AD&D rule, I end up drifting further into why this rule is illogical, or can be easily circumvented, or indeed why it undermines actual game play and builds resentment.

And then somewhere in that drift, I stop, realise I've gone too far, and then come here and kvetch.

There are two fundamental problems with all these paladin-constraining rules... and it not the theory that paladins need constraint. The first is that every one of them is entirely arbitrary. It's never explained why alignment is necessary for AD&D game play (it isn't), or why the paladin must have codes, or why there must be a punishment for these codes instead of the DM simply saying, "Nope, you can't do that, you're a paladin."  The reason is obviously because it shifts the responsibility from the DM for saying that to the paladin, which in turn allows the DM to be the avenging but righteous angel, bringing the paladin up short not by a simple game rule, "Do not pass GO, do not collect $200," but by an oppornistic jackassery that threatens the player's agency and right to game play on an MADE-UP bullshit moral principle.

Why ten magic items?  Arbitrary. Why can't the paladin keep their money and use it for good? Arbitrary. Why can't the paladin give the money to the party cleric, who ALSO must be lawful good, and is therefore limited? Arbitrary. Because we can't treat the player cleric like one of the NPC clerics of the game world UNDER THE DM'S AUTHORITY.  It's clubhouse rules, so no, you can't give away the tithe to the party's cleric. It's all arbitrary and none of it is ever explained, defined or justified.

The second fundamental problem is that the paladin isn't actually that powerful a class. Turning the undead is in game play a pretty weak mechanic, clerical spells by the time they're gotten are so low-level that they're not a threat, the 18 h.p. a paladin can heal is pathetic compared to the damage a 9th level dungeon bestows, the +2 bonus to AC and saving throws are only against evil creatures and honestly, again by 9th level, these are not that important. A suit of chain mail +2 gives the same benefit and the wearer of the chain mail doesn't have to obey a fucking code. A 1st level cleric can cast protection from evil which lasts for a whole fight and doesn't have a code either. The horse is great, but it's still just a horse. All in all, the paladin, which needs way more experience to go up a level than the mage, is not as powerful as the mage, especially after the mage reaches 7th level. So what gives? What the fuck? Why is ANY of this needed?

So it gets under my skin, I push a little here, I push a little there... and I realise I've gone past the written agenda and I have to stop, rethink and then rewrite.

I need to go back to the Foreword.  I had made a point that any rule that requires an arbitrary judgment that two DMs would not make the same cannot be seen as a rule, no matter how much credit AD&D gives to it. It's not game design, it's the DM cheating and calling it another name.

Steadily, I see that I'm going to have to discuss that in the Foreword, and add some content about rules that serve no real purpose in game play except to arbitrarily empower the DM.

"Gameplay" is defined as the DM presenting the setting, the players acting upon what they learn, the DM conveying the response of the setting to that action and then the players acting again. This symbiosis is the game. "Presenting the setting" can be defined as a situation that arises mechanically from the pretext of the creature or the physical qualities of that setting. It cannot be the DM deciding arbitrary to judge whether or not the player, specifically, ran the character in a way that is arbitrarily, for no actual defined rule, against the DM's personal wishes — which includes the DM putting on a "deity-suit" as if it isn't actually the DM calling the balls and strikes. Game play is that where the consequences of the game are decided by dice, not the DM's mindset about what a character class ought to be about, or represent, or how a player running a character of that class must move their personal game piece. And this is even more egregious if this arbitrary non-rule applies specifically to one player's behaviour and not everyone else's, including the DM's.

Working it out in my head how I'm going to write this, while also working out how to rewrite what I wrote today about the paladin.

This is an Important Game Mechanic

"That's the GM's Regional Map from my AOWG.  And it's a damned good regional map.  It's not a good map for a Simple Homebrew Campaign.  It does some s$&% wrong.  I just want you to see what it looks like.  Also, ignore the fact that it's got no labels.  Pretend I labeled things.

 "A GM's Regional Map is precise.  A GM can — within three miles — plot the exact position of any f$&%ing thing anywhere in the world.  A GM's Regional Map is mechanical.  The world's broken down into chunks.  Spaces.  Six-mile hexes in this case.  Thus a GM can easily plot movement and resolve actions without doing a lot of measuring and math.  And that's important because the GM's Regional Map — along with a few supplemental notes — is used for running games.  For adjudicating travel actions.  It's for running games.  At the table.  Not for looking at."

 — The Angry DM

I'm not going to rant.

Dear Reader, please take your time and look at the above's construction.  Consider each sentence individually.  Evaluate what it says.  Decide if it says anything.

Informed Ability is a TV trope wherein a writer stresses the ability of a character or a thing excessively in an effort to make the viewer believe that by repeating these things the overall idea will be accepted as true.  For example, if every cast member in at least half the TNG episodes tells us that Riker is "amazing," certainly that must be the case, otherwise why would all the characters believe it so thoroughly.  Of course, there's no evidence from any episode that Riker's capable of doing more than the most ordinary Starfleet officer, but that's not what matters.  What matters is how many times we tell you Riker's a darned good Starfleet officer.  Because he is.  I just said so.

Captain Obvious is a TV trope wherein the writer strives to engage the reader with interesting sounding exposition which, unfortunately, consists of information the audience already knows.  For example, the way that a map works and what it's for.  And that a fantasy map promoted by an RPG game blog is used for running games.  On a table.

This is a map of Calgary, where I live.  It's a damned good map of Calgary.  It's not a good map for simple things.  It does some shit wrong.  I just want you to see what it looks like.  Also, ignore the fact that it's got no labels.  Pretend I labeled things.

This map is precise.  You can see, within three miles, the exact position of any fucking thing in Calgary.  The map is mechanical.  Calgary is broken down into chunks.  Spaces.  Six-mile hexes in this case.  Thus you can easily plot movement in Calgary without doing a lot of measuring and math.  And that's important, because THIS map of Calgary is used for running games.  For adjudicating travel actions.  It's not for looking at.

So everyone can see where I live, I put a dot in the hex which contains my house.  This isn't to say the dot represents my actual house location.  Only that the hex with the dot contains my house.

Given the precision of this map, you shouldn't have any trouble finding my front door.

P.S.

AOWG stands for "Angry Open-World Game."  And here I thought it mean Angry Old White Guy.

Perception Checks

The DM describes anything: a room, an opponent, a landscape, the thorn in the player's foot ... and the player answers, "I want to make a perception check."

Effectively, the player is asking, "I want more information than you're giving me."  By using the perception roll, the player means to use the rules of the game to force the DM to give more information; or, in the case of looking for a weak spot in the armor of an opponent, a flaw in a non-player's argument or evidence of some kind, the player wishes to force the DM to give the player an advantage.

So DM's learn to describe part of what the player ought to see, knowing the players will make a perception check, so that the DM can then tell the rest of the story.

This is terrible, terrible game design.

My dictionary defines perception as "the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses."  In other words, if the player character HAS senses, they should already be aware of anything that they are capable of seeing or hearing merely by being present in a given space.  There should never be a need for a "check."  Can I see?  Then I see it.  Quod erat demonstrandum.

If, as a DM, I don't say that the enemy's armor has a weak point, then either A) you don't see it; or B) all armor has weak points, you always see it and it makes no difference to your ability to hit an opponent because it is assumed your level always permits you to take the best advantages of your enemies' weaknesses as you are able.

If, as a player, you are in a darkened room, and I don't describe the homonculous in the corner because it is hidden, then you don't see it, no matter how hard you roll the dice or how hard you skin your eyes in an attempt to see something you don't know is there.  If, on the other hand, you move forward, to where you will see it, then you will see it, and there is no need to make any sort of roll whatsoever.

You can't perceive something you don't perceive.  If you perceive it, then I am duty bound as a DM to tell you that you see it.  That is my responsibility, not because you rolled a die but because you see it.

If you see something and you don't know what it is, that is because you don't know what it is, not because you have inaccurately perceived it.  If you don't know what it is, all the perception rolls in the world will not give you knowledge you do not have.  If you do know what it is, there is no need for a roll.

If the thing has concealed itself so that it appears as something other than it appears to be, then that is a roll related to the thing's ability to conceal itself, NOT as a matter of your ability to perceive it.  If it can conceal itself as something than it is not, then you will perceive it as something it is not.

More information is obtained by changing your physical position; by using your other senses to investigate it or by poking at it with a stick of by some other test.  In other words, by taking an action, which the player designates.  NOT by looking harder or hearing harder without actually changing anything about the situation you've already perceived.

I'm sure I used this picture once before, but it applies so fuck it.

Occasionally, a character will be focused on something and may not see a monster enter a room, or may not notice movement of some other form.  Under those circumstances, I do use an intelligence check to determine the character's awareness or alertness to that change; however, this never applies to any situation where the player may come to harm.  Situations of that kind deserve a surprise roll, for which I will simply say, "Roll a d6," without explaining why.  I say it.  Not the player.  How would the player know to make a roll about something the player cannot possibly know anything about?

If the player is surprised, then it is too late to know why; and if the player is not surprised, I will say, "This happens [description] and you're not surprised.  Please take action."

Since I describe the new situation, there still is no need for a perception check.

The perception check makes no sense to me.

All Con

The other concern I have with the video in the previous post is this, which happened early in the video and then later:

"The most dangerous thing here was getting on the ship.  It was 50 feet up and we had to make two athletic rolls and of course, none of us could climb.  Several of the players kept falling off and breaking their legs and arms.  Those vines ... they wanted us dead."

"We pried up some damaged boards and made it down to the lower decks and started exiting the ship of the NPC's, climbing down on the vines.  And this is where the ship crew started dying like flies.  Even more than earlier ~ not the gorillas, but the vines.  Because remember, all the ship crew have exhaustion; meaning that they suffer penalties when climbing.  If they stay, they'll get burned alive.  So it was like, "All right you guys, come down here."  First guy [falling body]: "You're dead!"  [falling body] "You're dead!" [falling body] "You're ... also dead." [falling body] "Wow, he's still alive ~ just both of his legs are broken."

Okay.  So most readers were probably laughing through this.  So funny.  Breaking arms and legs, impossible vines, hah hah hah. 

I see nothing funny about this.  I see a seriously broken game, with a set of irrational arbitrary demands from a DM who is virtually non-existent in the teller's narrative.  I see my players, not being able to climb, asking if the ship is worth salvaging (not apparently), does it look like it has treasure (possibly), testing the vines and asking, "how safe are these," to which I would have to rationally answer, "Not safe in any way, whatsoever," because characters are actual people and people can perfectly able to recognize a situation that will probably put their lives in extreme danger.  I would presume characters, being adventurers and therefore skilled at assessing risk, would be doubly able to do so.

So the characters in my game would ponder, and figure out a way to use the trees to which the vines are attached, or chop the trees down, to cause the ship to crash to the ground, with the argument, "the gold will be fine."

But once discovering the crew was aboard, the characters would be, "How can we enable the crew to descend without our having to go up?"  And that would produce a lot of possible answers, such as digging out blankets and lacing them together, to create a thing to catch the crew, or some other means to produce a soft landing.  And if the crew refused to jump, I can see my players asking, "Are we really firemen here?  If they can't save themselves ..."

There's no way, no way in the world, that any players of mine would try to climb vines that were so hard to climb that two rolls were a virtual guarantee of falling. And if one did try, that first failure would absolutely, certainly, ensure the players did not send up another character by the vines.  What I get from the story, then, is the DM pointing at the players and saying, "Thou shalt climb the vines, because I order it," and the players answering, "Yes master, we are thy miserable chattel, we are grateful for the privilege of licking your boots with our dice."

And this makes me really, really mad.

Just now, as I get the online Juvenis campaign in motion again, the players have come to a four-foot-wide stone bridge over a 100 foot drop, in a dark cavern, with sounds, and without any certainty of what may be in the half dark.  They are taking it quite seriously.  No one has made a joke about dying.  The most sure-footed is making her way out onto the bridge.

How would it be if I, as DM, decided that to cross this bridge, everyone should have to make two rolls that would produce a 50% chance of a character falling to their death.  How fun!  How exciting!  Wow, we're really playing D&D now, aren't we?

What a load of bollocks.  You, dear reader, can laugh at the hilarity of the Puffin Forrest video, but the truth is, it's a really, really crappy stand-in for an "adventure."  The concept, the expected adherence to the DM's solution to the problem, the arc of the undead appearing and the ability of undead gorillas to flawlessly climb these vines (unless, hm, they imaginatively climbed up some other way ...) is just gawddamned bloody sad.

I am sorry, very sorry, that to play this game you have to prostrate yourself to this level of creativity.  And then, from desperation to defend it, to argue that somehow it is "fun."  Yes, so fun, to roll dice that ensure failure, to take part in a sequence of events that a NASCAR fan would find infantile, in order to have something to do on a Saturday night.

I ... I just ...

When I started this blog in 2008, I had issues with D&D that I had been carrying around for years, knowing the sort of narratives that had been floating around the game since the early 80s.  But you know, it's not surprising that stuff like White Plume Mountain is deified as a game adventure ... when compared to what is being described here.  At an official company organized event.

And I had someone tell me yesterday that this 5e thing  is "just a different system, with different pros and cons."  All I see is con.  Mounds and mounds of con.  Holy shit, it's the wrath of con.