A Lot to Be Learned

Yesterday I was advised by a reader that there was "a lot to be learned" from Kelsey Dionne's Shadowdark. So I looked further into it. Shown is a screenshot of page 9, demonstrating the depth, difficulty and text size of the Shadowdark product. By typing "Shadowdark pdf" into the Google search engine, it's possible for anyone to read the entire document with patience and a willingness to skip ads.

I'll begin by pointing out that this is quite obviously not an independently designed role-playing game. It depends heavily on D&D, which is a nice way of saying it outright stole D&D's mechanics, dumbed them down and removed everything of nuance. On a design level, this is more or less the equivalent of rewriting Shakespeare's plays as a book of short stories. It helps a LOT with creativity when the goal is, first, let someone else do the work, and second, dumb it down to a grade school level of comprehension.

Doesn't terribly impress me.

I was never a supporter of the Old School Renaissance. I want to make that perfectly clear. I wrote yesterday that "The Old School Renaissance emerged as a reaction to what many players saw as the increasing complexity of newer editions of D&D." My philosophy about gaming differs from this premise in two important ways.

First of all, I don't think newer editions of D&D are very fucking complex. In fact, I think they're extremely stupified in design and mechanics, infantile in their reward systems and egregiously "non-game" in structure. Without hesitation, I automatically rank people who think 3rd, 4th or 5th edition D&D is "complex" as people not ready to for a grown-up career. Compared with what university educated professionals do every day, the "complexity" of D&D fits the status of learning how to Halloween as a kid. That is, not complex. We're not removing game resistance, we're not removing density... when someone carps about the need for D&D to return to the simplification of "The OSR", they're talking about removing adulthood.

People talk about AD&D and later editions as though they're equivalent to climbing K2. I'll remind the reader that I learned how to play the game at fifteen. My daughter did at nine. What are we to do with a bunch of adults who whine that D&D is so hard, they can't manage on the level of a nine-year-old?

My other reason for disliking the OSR comes from my having been playing this whole time, albeit with dark periods. By the summer of 1980, nine months after learning the game, I was so dissatisfied with the simplicity of AD&D that I began rewriting parts of the game to make it more complex, not less.  And mind you, I'm no superbrain. I do not have a PhD, I'm not an engineer or a doctor, or a lawyer; I've never had a technical job (I don't count writing). I've never worked in research or design or manufacturing. As a writer, I comment on things. This is not a superbrain activity. So when I say, "AD&D wasn't complex enough," I'm not writing as Steven Hawkings. I'm saying, the game was so egregiously simple, it wasn't sufficient to provide what I needed my game system to provide. That is millions (plural) of miles away from Shadowdark, 43 years before the launch of the latter.

I have continued to make the game more complex in the years since. As such, I have very little reason to embrace the OSR's ideology, and even less reason to consider the dumbification of AD&D as something I can "learn" from. If AD&D felt insufficient for me in 1980, before internet discourse, before "narrative gaming," before Critical Role, before modern bloat, before corporate overproduction, long before the presence of another edition or even the simplistic splatbooks of original AD&D, then my point of view could not have been in 2010 that D&D had "lost its way" through excess complexity. I thought the idea ridiculous at the time and I continue to think it's ridiculous. Moreover, I don't want to play with people who think the OSR idea has any validity. If that's you, for the love of all things sacred, stop playing D&D and go get a real fucking job, one with consequences attached to your actions. You need more life experience, not a dumber game.

Let me see if I can explain where a simple system utterly fails my perceived structure of player agency and opportunity. If you don't know me, you might want to read this, this and then this post.

If you're following along with the Discord Campaign, then you know that my party has recently been offered logistical support from a group of ethnic Hungarians seeking to destabilise the Ottoman Regime from the inside... an idea the party has embraced because they see it as a way of enriching themselves. Parties are, after all, always parties.

But now that the players have decided to onboard themselves (they were not required to do so; if they had not, I'd have simply given them some other opportunity), then the system they play in has to be robust enough to answer their intentions honestly and intelligently. A simplified system cannot hope to sustain deep agency in a setting that lacks the procedural density needed to answer the player's meaningful questions. Before Ottoman logistics in Hungary can be destabilised, they have to be comprehended, they need a logic. The players will need to know, ahead of time, what the blockhouse ought to contain, fairly, without that being strictly an arbitrary number of gold. They need to know which trade routes matter and why, what support the blockhouse has from the immediate area, how authority functions both in the blockhouse and in the surrounding region under Ottoman control. To make decisions on how to attack the blockhouse, they must have information on residents in the area, the probable consequence of the attack, what the next target might logically be, what an end-point of their engagement might be, where they feel they have a right to draw the line before getting in deeper... all with a legitimate agency that says "the players are in charge of what the players do," not me, not a story, not a convenient "adventure midway ride," nothing whatsoever that forces them, beyond the pure logic of the setting, to keep going in a setting large enough that if they walk two hundred miles west, they can escape Ottoman influence entirely and set up shop elsewhere with a clean slate.

Shadowdark's mechanics simply aren't good enough to provide this.

This is the real divide between the D&D I'm teaching and the D&D being sold, under various cheap-minded rubrics. The OSR often talks about "player freedom," but what that usually means is freedom inside a vacuum. The players may choose any direction, but the world lacks enough internal structure for those directions to materially differ from the players' perspective in any meaningful way. They can choose the left door vs. the right one. They can choose whether to enter the dungeon or not. They can choose whether or not this is the right time to return to town and resupply. The decisions are isolated, trivial and ultimately meaningless in a broader context. Players can make a choice, but they cannot engage their strategic reasoning because there is no rule structure and no complex setting against which to test their understanding of potential consequences. They can't have agency because there's nothing to have agency about. Without a detailed framework, the setting simply cannot respond to player choice.

Thus, complexity in the mechanics and the world is the medium through which player agency becomes functional. Detailed systems allow players to make deliberate choices, anticipate outcomes and respond to evolving circumstances. Without that depth, what appears to be freedom is in fact constrained and superficial. The richness of the system and the world is what allows agency to exist in a functional sense. In essence, the world’s complexity and the rules' granularity are inseparable from the player's capacity to act deliberately and with impact.

But as I said in the attached posts, DMs don't want that. They want controlled, managed, contained players who do as they're told, so they can move from points A to B to C in succession in a curated, Candyland-like structured game setting, where cardboard baddies are knocked down with dice, or fudging, since if the baddie doesn't fall then it has to be pushed over. This is what OSR celebrates as the "ideal model" for D&D, and I think that's gawdawful.

Finally, with regard to yesterday's post, one thing I did not comment upon was the lack of actual game discussion among the participants. I did not learn anything about Shadowdark from Dionne's own mouth, the matter of "State of OSR in 2026" was not in fact discussed because, in fact, OSR itself was not discussed. What was discussed was an hour of "engagement" in the least valuable, socially awkward manner imaginable.

To which I'd like to respond, can the reader see me on this panel?

It's a two-part question. First, is there any universe in which these people could imaginatively look at this blog or my content or my work and want to have me present? I think not.

And secondly, since I would talk about the subject, the State of OSR in 2026, which would be to say, it will be exactly what it was in 2025. "Advancement" is not being made in any sort of science or game play manner. It is just people churning out more product of the exact same kind. I would not be welcome with my comments. I would make everyone at the table extremely uncomfortable because I would not be there to sell anything. And where it comes to table sales, the purpose of this kind of video is to make sure no one looks incompetent, since we're giving everyone lip service in order to sell themselves as "real, authentic people" while needing to do nothing to perform that model except to sit in chairs and speak in vaguely conversational patterns. The panel does not exist to investigate anything, or talk about anything, or present a viewpoint that might damage their potential sales.

That is why, for me, I'd as soon be a member of a panel of real estate agents talking about "the housing market in 2026"... since, obviously, for real estate agents, the only answer to that question is, "It's going to be amazeballs!"

Thank you, no.

Can you imagine the seller of an OSR product addressing the question, the State of the OSR in 2026 with the answer, "This design trend, actually, has reached a dead end in these last fifteen years. I think we need to reconsider whether or not this OSR thing has actually run its course."

Three Other Affordances

In this part two post about affordances, part 1 here, I'll use three more basic games as structural models for a different approach to D&D, not as a replacement of the dungeon, but as something for the players to do besides the dungeon. None of them are new to this blog, but perhaps if I describe them differently, more structurally, it might be easier to imagine how they could each be run separately (or even conjoinedly) as scaled affordances that are spacially bounded, have a repeatable procedure and yet still a reliable payoff. This is not a structure for these different game styles that I've tried to outline before, so let's see where it gets us.

The three games are, not surprisingly, Go, Chess and Monopoly. None of these games, obviously, are RPG in structure... but all are built upon a thematic ideal that attempts to simplify a normal part of the human condition, which can also be likewise simulated by D&D. Go is about the acquisition of territory, the placement of stones that inevitably impose jurisdiction upon a wide area. Chess is control through indirect power; the use of pawns to hedge in larger pieces until the most important is trapped. And Monopoly is the mastery of resources through purchase, improvement and ultimately leverage against persons and larger entities.

Go on a two-dimensional gameboard is an adversarial contest between two sides that place stones to capture "territory." In a D&D setting, it's usually assumed that all the "territory" in the setting has already been "captured," but this isn't actually true. The dungeon is essentially territory that the players enter, clean out and plunder... and then abandon, because the empty dungeon in the game is assumed to have no value. That territory doesn't have to be abandoned; it could, instead, be reconstructed and repurposed to be the first stone the players put on the game board. A DM, obviously, could decide to play "gotcha" with the players — "Oh, you thought this dungeon was cleaned out? Ha, you fools!" — but let's assume a DM not threatened by the players having achieved something fairly.

With the dungeon as foothold, the players can either begin to claim the nearest plots of land, either clearing out any creatures that are there (adventuring), which is like laying stones side by side, or jumping to another dungeon some twenty or forty miles away, which is like placing your black stone on the other side of the opponent's white stone. Effectively, the whole of civilisation is covered by white stones, from the player's perspective, but we may also see it as millions of different shades and tones, not getting along with each other, so that the players can conquer small areas and grow their territorial coverage.

Here is our repeatable procedure: start by clearing out two or three dungeons, each of which we then convert into structured, controlled "stones." We hire mercenaries to defend them, or henchfolk, being careful not to spread ourselves too thinly at the campaign's start. We seek ways to tie our stones together; force out the residents of this village OR impose ourselves (kindly, meanly) as their protectors. We might use our wealth gained through plunder to legitimately make their lives better, or we may intimidate them into making ourselves more powerful. Slowly, we accumulate stones until we reach a level that we can seize larger and larger sections of wilderness or the periphery of society; until, inevitably, we can count ourselves as the local lords over such and such a valley, giving our fealty to some higher power who acknowledges our right to legimately "own" our land. This is our predictable and reliable payoff.

After that, we can legitimately enter a foreign land, plunder, seize their territory and call it our own, and use our king's support as a threat against their king. Again, repeatable, again, a reliable payoff. Wholly douable and we're not endlessly in a dungeon.

Chess on a two-dimensional gameboard is an adversarial contest between two players who use subordinate pieces to temporarily apply pressure against other squares, in order to eventually force an enemy to surrender more entities than the number working for us. If we discard the idea that the board squares are "territory," and instead see the board as a resolution of power over whom the players have leverage, then we can see how the game represents all of society falling temporarily into the party's hands. Think of it thusly: there are not 32 game pieces on a side, and there are not two sides, but rather there are thousands of "entities" that fill up the world, each of which has appetites and vulnerabilities the players can exploit, one at a time. To put it another way, instead of acquiring physical territory, the game becomes about acquiring allegiances, while using those allegiances to "take" our enemies resources from them.

Consider the party encountering a bandit party, one that is small enough for the players to intimidate. Rather than destroying them, the players "make a deal" with them. They'll supply the bandits with food, a place of protection, weapons, healing, if the bandits will harry a certain village. Then they approach the village with another deal; "We'll convince the bandits to leave you alone, not for coin, but for the place in the local market your village's charter allows you to use. In fact, we'll do your trading for you."

The village gets the party legitimate access to the town; guards as another "pawn" are bribed, used to eliminate an enemy pawn, a competitor village. Steadily, as the party gains levels, they make donations to a religious entity to gain their good will; to a local squire; to a guild; the money from dungeon plundering is used to grease whichever group can be induced or motivated to work on the party's behalf, while repeating the cycle over and over. Gain access, use the access to find a weak point, use money to turn this force against that, increase access to higher entities.  And at each step along the way comes entitlements, options, goods received from destroyed competitors and always the readiness to confront an enemy physically who won't concede when pressed.

Pawns are any group that is expendable and numerous: the aforementioned bandits, dock workers convinced to strike, fisherfolk for whom we buy boats so we can corner the market on fish, any group that is really unable to defend themselves because they have no real power. The religious community is a bishop, free to cut diagonally through society, invoking their control through belief, legitimacy, sanctuary, denunciation, charity and moral authority, all of which can be levied even against a monarch. Soldiers are knights, which can move this way, that way, with sanctioned irregularity: they can appear where needed, ignore what they're told to ignore, and force change without waiting for procedure. Fortifications are rooks, anchoring territory, controlling approaches, dealing with common folk who dare to use violence to undermine our framework of promises and lies that ensures our power over them.

And the Queen is the prestige we gain through union with another entity like ourselves: prestige, title, legitimacy, access to the highest levels of society, a piece with maximal mobility that changes what is possible everywhere. It is the most powerful piece because it multiplies your options.

All this relies upon a DM who does not care if we succeed. One who is willing to shrug, even laugh at our audacity, while conceding, "Yes, that makes sense, that would probably work." It needs a DM that understands this is how the real world actually works, who doesn't feel the need to moralise "the decent way to play" the game, like everyone's a hero. I'm that DM. But I don't honestly think there's another DM anywhere who is. Chess, however, is a game where even the most powerful of pieces can be eliminated ruthlessly, in exchange for advantage over an enemy. There is no "morality" in chess, no "favourite knight" we would never part with. Every piece except the king, ourselves, is expendable. D&D, played with that mindset, where every NPC in the game is, in the DM's mind, just as expendable, works. But if the DM has favourites? There's no point in even trying to play this form of game. If the DM won't play chess and insists on playing Tic-Tac-Toe, then the only winning move is not to play.

Monopoly is an economics-themed game where the players move randomly around a 2D board and purchase properties when they become available. Once the properties are purchased, the players collect rent from visitors, until sufficient capital is available to upgrade the property so that more rent can be obtained. In D&D, vast parts of the game setting are available for purchase, much of it dirt cheap or even, in the case of the wilderness, free for the taking. The loop is simple when we translate this into the game setting: acquire assets, develop them, create income, use income to acquire more assets and survive the swings of bad luck long enough to compound. "Boardwalk" is replaced with a riverside warehouse, an inn, a farm, a fishing boat, a kiln, a smokehouse, a toll bridge. "Rent" is accumulated as produce, fees, settlements, margins. "Railroads" and "Water Works" are replaced by smuggling, guilds, trade routes, public contracts, banking... and of course still, flat out plunder.

And at first, yes, plunder is the easiest way to gain, but capitalisation is reliable, foreseeable, non-threatening and, inevitably, it grows exponentially. Though it requires a party not to think small; it requires a party ready to do bookkeeping; it requires a DM willing to just let the players' assets be, just like every other asset with an owner in the game world. If their business have gotten along just fine for twenty years, then the players should expect the same. The DM cannot feel obliged to burn down the players' bakery for the sake of "drama"... and if the players own an inn, warehouse, kiln or ferry, these too should be respected.

In fact, consider it thusly. If it is not permissible to kill the players' character without granting that character the right of a fight for life, then it is not permissible to do the same with the players property without also giving the players a right to fight to keep it. Let us say the bakery does catch fire. Then, if so, the players should be on hand to try to put it out; they should have an equal chance to put the fire out as they would collectively to save their own lives in a fight; and if they should lose that fight, then it is is a fair loss, not the ad hoc removal of something the players have earned upon a DM's whim.

So long as a party can respond — whatever kind of game is played — take actions, make rolls, spend resources, call in help, accept trade-offs and succeed or fail with the same principle as a dungeon fight, then the DM is justified in imposing a threat. But just as the DM cannot say, "your character died in their sleep," just because the DM decides it, then what the character's own, even if we talking about a fish hook, cannot be taken away without the due process of challenge, die rolls and success/failure. This is a contract that every DM should absolutely observe, whatever the game played.

It is the only way to define "fair play."

Once the players understand this contract exists, and the DM will respect it, then they can relax. They can feel able to step up fairly and justifiably with the expectation that "If I work for it, it's mine, and only mine, and not something the DM can arbitrarily take away." With that assurance, players can do anything. They don't have to believe their only choice of action is just another dungeon.

The Grand Affordance

Sort of catching my breath today. Moved over to working on the March Lantern, which will probably be late, not because of this work this month but because I tried to pick it up yesterday and found I'd not saved the file that I'd been working with at the start of this month. So, spent today rebuilding it and there are some details I haven't got notes for, so I'm building them from scratch. Official publishing date is Feb 21st, so plenty of time for that, don't know what I'll have on the 1st of February for a preview, but I'm sure to have something.

Ah, I needed a break from the thief for a bit anyway. Too, I want to get a post written today, and this is a good time to talk about "affordances."

This is a new word for me too. No doubt I've run across it reading about theoretical game design, but I've never had a reason to use it until now... and you know what they say: when you learn a word, it's always easier to remember the word if you use that word right away. Probably best to start with a clear definition.

In the context of D&D, an "affordance" is what the game's rules and the fictional situation make it possible for a player character to do, right now, in play, without the need for a new rule to be invented. This doesn't just count the character's ability to do something — say, to climb walls — but also the needful circumstances that have to exist in the game's setting that makes the ability mean something: in this case, an actual wall to climb, and a reason to climb it. If the dungeon master does not include a wall in the setting that must be climbed for some reason beyond, "Hey, it's fun to climb walls," then the character's ability has no in-game meaning.

And it's in this last that I think a lot of D&D truly fails. On the whole, the affordances created by the setting are so limited — a dungeon is always going to have a pit, a secret door, a puzzle, an empty room, a stuck door — that circumstances get overused ad nauseum because the game culture only knows a handful of "things you put in a dungeon." Those things are designed to trigger the set band of character capabilities... and once you've played D&D for a year, the dungeon, the things the character can do in it, becomes dull because the total number is regrettably finite. The stock obstacles get solved by the stock abilities, which the players inevitably achieve in toto, whereupon it's all just going through the motions.

This is why no deeper game emerges. Not because affordances of both types — abilities and situations — but because the arrival of new abilities advanced in later editions are not complimented by an arrival of new setting problems. Because, in the frame of a game board (which is what a dungeon really is, a 2D setting that characters moved vertically and horizontally through) there are so few situational possibilities that CAN be invented. The dungeon is too narrow a design structure to lift D&D higher.

Thus, you get a design ceiling. We can keep adding abilities, but if the field of action stays "a constrained traversal puzzle/maze with keyed obstacles," then most abilities never have much use, or are merely beneficial to the most peripheral of player needs: the ability to "make torches," say, or "lantern pointing 3," where the light can be shone just that much better on the approaching monsters. Or, more truthfully, minor scouting bonuses, slightly improved resource conversion, small numerical adjustments to detection... whatever we can dream up to sand the corners off the old skill-set.

We can get into affordances that bypass the dungeon model, but before we can do that it's necessary to acknowledge the crushing weight the dungeon imposes upon the participant's mindset. Dungeon crawling is "lucrative." It is the only kind of play that D&D offers that reliably converts effort into a quantifiable reward that brings power, wealth and prestige. Even if the players don't collect "experience" at all, but simply "go up a level when the adventure is finished," this dictates a sort of finish line that can be defined... and finish lines are one-dimensional things to be crossed when exiting a two-dimensional framework. In a three-dimensional world, finish lines are meaningless.

Dungeons are bounded, legible and procedural, making them easy for DMs to run once they have the dungeon example in hand. The module is the LINEAR structure of the game's rules that are not, as evidenced by my recent work, not easily understood as linear.  Room 1, kill monster, collect loot, move forward, turn left, count time, consider light, roll for monster, roll surprise, fight, trap, treasure, rinse, repeat. It's so simple a child can DM it, and many do, every day, however many adults simply can't.  But so long as the dungeon continues to exist as the "grand affordance" to game play, then every attempt by a DM to expand outside of that structure is going to be met by players who say, "I don't get it — where's the objective? How does doing this help me get gold pieces, what's the path here to levelling. Is there a boss at the end? What is the point of this?" ... because these questions are so clearly answered by the dungeon, there's no room for any other kind of game. Hell, most participants are so used to D&D being structured like this, they pin a badge on their chest for running the game in the exact same way for 40 years.

But then, I'd do that if I were a chess player. If I was still playing baseball now, and the subject came up, I'd be saying to my team, "Yeah, I've been playing this game for nearly 50 years."  So what's wrong about saying the same about dungeon-based D&D? Isn't that what everyone expects the game to be?

Assuming — and I've been arguing this for the last 18 years of this blog — that we want to break out of the dungeon affordance, how would we do that? Well, honestly, how have we done that, because in fact a lot of the chance in later D&D arises because the dungeon has  dwindled in the player's eye. This is why they've tried to escape the 2D structure through persuading the players to "roleplay harder." Roleplaying — inventing things for my character to care about that aren't game payoffs (like x.p., wealth, power), and then pretending to care about those inventions, livens the game up for some people. Whatever we might feel about the "acting version" of D&D, it's not linear. It's ridiculously mastubatory, but we've never needed to invent reasons for people to masturbate. There's a legitimate, special pleasure in convincing ourselves that we've just said something really, really clever, which encourages us to try to say something else that's likewise clever. Even it that isn't a game, human interaction is the system where the affordances — the listening apparati of fellow humans — are built right in. A player says something, another player reacts, the DM reacts, the group gets a little hit of social success, and that becomes the payout. It’s self-fuelling.

This personally does not appeal. I would rather get the dopamine hit here by saying actual intelligent things, not just that which seems momentarily clever in-game. I was past playing-pretend at twenty; I get no sense of achievement through acting like a made-person, unless I were to do that on a stage in front of a large audience of total strangers who have no reason to respect me unless I work hard to present a good performance. Once a person has done this in front of hundreds of people at once, and I have, I'm not much impressed because I made my friends, who have been hand-picked to like me, laugh. The laughter of strangers is much harder to win and far more gratifying.

In game play, I want to overcome resistance that's hard to overcome. A dungeon can provide that; a good dungeon can push back hard and so, when it's taken, this feels like an accomplishment. Thus the dungeon's monopoly: it is spatially bounded, it has a repeatable procedure and it offers a reliable payoff. An alternative to that monopoly demands that, to be popular, even a little, it has to compete with the dungeon on those terms: the DM must be able to conceive the structure; the DM must be able to run it in a rational, predictable manner; and in the end it must pay off.

Realistically, however, even if these points are met, most DMs can't do it — in most cases because DMs can't fathom it — and the stranglehold that dungeons have on the game causes a lot of players to mistrust any game structure that does not look like a dungeon. I know. I've run what, three, four campaigns online through text, none of them dungeon based, and the players never ceased to struggle with deciding, "What am I supposed to do, exactly?"

50 years of dungeon-and-field combat play have taught players that unbounded situations (not "dungeon) are where engagement goes to die, where reward goes to die, and where the players feel their collective heads are going to roll because they don't know what a "safe" action is from an "unsafe" action. Dungeons are easy; line up, put the casters at the back, test the hall ahead, keep your weapons out, expect an action or trap at any time. Whatever's coming, it's going to come from behind or ahead, or out of that door, or that well, or that pond, or whatever access to this space that we can see.

But outside... danger can come from anywhere! The players can't look in every direction, cannot tell if that bush is safe, knows they can be hit by things from hundreds of yards away... "safe" is impossible. And everyone we talk to? Piss the wrong one off and your head will roll — while there's no way to know what the "wrong one" remotely looks like. So don't do anything. Pay for your ale, go to your room, block the door with all your gear and seal the door closed with a spell if you've got one, and DM willing we'll all be a nice, safe dungeon as soon as possible.

What I've tried to teach with parties in the non-dungeon setting is this: that everywhere is in fact safe. Don't attack anyone, obviously. Don't enter a large, official guild or castle-keep and start casting spells. Treat the guards in the game as you'd treat a real life police officer. But in reality, so long as you obey the law, no one cares if you're here. They don't care if you're standing on the street, they don't care if you're a foreigner or you don't rub blue mud into your navel like the locals do. You're actually very safe in a town, because no one else wants to break the law either, including the local guard. It's their role to keep things peaceful so commerce can take place.

The reason why this message doesn't land, however, is that there are too many DMs out there trying to turn towns into dungeons, or wildernesses into dungeons. The DMG, with it's town encounter table, tries to do exactly like this? The party is just standing around? Can't have that. Roll a die and then have the guard or rakes or whomever come and bully them. Because this isn't a town, this is a different kind of dungeon. More cowbell. Hammer in hand, every thing looks like a nail. That kind of thing.

In reality, no one wants trouble. The guards don't want to die. The merchants just want to trade. The labourers just want to get their work done. The "rakes" want to be ignored. Even the crooks don't want trouble, which is why they tend to operate as far away from awake people as possible. But DMs refuse to let "safe" exist. They treat safety as boredom. They treat a stable environment as wasted table time. They are conditioned to believe that if dice are not being rolled and threats are not being applied, then the game is not happening. So they invent irrational harassment, random confrontations, petty insults and gotcha consequences. The result is that players learn, correctly, that the DM will punish stillness. If you stop moving, something will jump you. If you talk to someone, or they talk to you, its a trap. If you relax, you’ll be robbed. That is "town as dungeon." And it's why I can't run my world online, because the people who find this blog know D&D too well to believe that a townperson can be taken at their word and isn't trying to set them up somehow. Gotcha D&D, invented by Gygax and pushed hard through the Dragon Magazine and others, ruined this game.

I'm going to go ahead and publish this as the first part of a two-post series. I'm not done, but a lot's been said and I am going to use this to move past the dungeon premise, so it's a good time to break.

In D&D, There's No Such Thing as Superstition

In most fantasy writing, it's made overtly clear from the start that the monsters are real, the magic is real and that the modern rationalist lens for things need not apply here. Very often, an author starts by breaking the fourth wall, having a character think something like, "The dragons arrived in Septivus Canyon when Friedrich was a boy, and he had grown up hearing and reading about them."  This nails down the concept at once: "dragons are real."

The Lantern, however, does not do this. Since the framing of the writing is a broadsheet that talks not to the reader, but to other residents of the game world, it would be ridiculous for the editor to include such a line as the one above. Everyone reading, within the setting, would already know about Septivus Canyon, and how long the dragons had been there. Such details wouldn't be explained, they'd be referenced "off hand," said without preparation, thought or ceremony. Thus Fleetmarsh the editor talks about the magic missile casually, as something everyone knows, presented in the same register as lost goats, the weather or complaints about bill collectors.

Yet, even after consuming the magazine, the modern reader still assumes that Theral's Red or Snellcrake's draught is hokum, a snake oil, not real, not effective in the way the advertiser proclaims it. And this permits me to play a very clever mindgame with the reader, where their habitual superstition — and their habit of viewing D&D in meta terms — let's me pull the rug out time and again, probably as long as I wish.

It goes to the critical lack-of-connect that comes from the books and the modules and the cookie-cutter approach to running D&D. Even as we "pretend" to fight a dragon or an orc, or "pretend" that this ability gives +2 to our ability to leap this gorge, we lose sense of what the player would really think as they move through the world: that they're good a gorge jumping, and that dragons and orcs are no stranger to them than snakes and people from Maine.

This, as anyone who reads it, is far more immersive than most DMs achieve.  And it enables those who want to become better DMs to see at once, easily, that we make the game world more real when we don't explain things. Where we simply say, without building some huge justification for why a particular dungeon exists, or the purpose of some high mucky-muck, that the thing just IS.  After all, why would the characters know? When we invent such backstories, it's to inform the PLAYER, not the character... and is that really the goal here?

When the setting just is, without justification or lecture, the players must inhabit it directly rather than hovering above it, sifting through the DM's long, boring descriptions of the thing they haven't yet seen... in the same way we do our taxes.

For those who have read the content, consider the Priory for example. We learn nothing about how it was built or for whom; why it hasn't been knocked down, or why it declined. We learn a few rumours about others who may or may not have come to a bad end on account of it, but these rumours are neither confirmed nor supported by what the adventurers find. That leaves a huge open-end to the whole concept, since we're left with, "Is that really how such-and-such died?" Which as DM we don't have to answer, because sometimes... and say it with me now: nobody knows. Seriously, nobody, not in the game setting.

Thus the players are denied the comfort of omniscience. If we won't tell them, because arguably no one in the character's sphere actually knows, then the players also do not gain the comfort of being reassured. Is the wolf in Hennock just a wolf? Fleetmarsh doesn't know. His readers don't know. Perhaps the only ones who knew were able to hold that knowledge for just a few seconds, before... well, you can guess.  That puts doubt in the player's minds, even as it suggests that surely, a wolf in a typical English countryside can't be that dangerous.  Can it?

It builds tension because with it, stripped of the assumption that the DM's going to make sure the wolf in their path is manageable at their level, the players must have courage.  That's what's been lost in modern D&D.  Yes, the gallimaufry has gotten ridiculous, roleplaying has obliterated game-playing, incompetency is all that a new player can expect from a DM, who learned as much from the DM before... but the most sabotaging concept that has truly made the game boring is the total lack of courage.

Now, JB at Blackrazor likes to say, and accurately, that D&D is about adventuring. But adventuring is about courage, which is sorely lacking in people who lose nothing except their pride if a character is killed. But in this day and age, pride comes in dribs and drabs, it seems, and none have pride to spare. So courage, it's believed, must be set aside for surety, if the game's to be fun.

It is a sad state for the game to come to.

The Lantern, then, provides what's missing. These persons, even Geoffrey Fleetmarsh, vain and self-righteous as he is, who strive to learn spells or have lost two of their fingers, having gone to actual war, or urging themselves to go outside the church to discover what's scratching there, are brave. Some are a bit smug and self-important, but they're yet ready to do what we, in this world, would not: actually risk their lives to learn how to do something, and go somewhere, most of us would avoid just as hard as we can. But they're doing it because they believe it's the right thing. Bad stuff has happened... someone really ought to do something.  As Fleetmarsh writes, "Will no one undertake to deal with this menace?"

It is the words of a soul living in the 17th century, when much of the ordinary world was more dangerous than it is now... when going out to the privy on a bad night could have consequences none could guess at. What thoughts must that walk, which must be taken, dredge up in one's mind when the world is full of spiders as big as dogs?

Easy-peasy

Writing this post for Vlad, who is a little miffed that while the taiga list is pretty good, his characters are running in a jungle.  Turning to chatgpt, I copy and pasted the taiga happenstance description along with this question, "Of the following, which would also be present in an Amazonian, Congolese or Central American jungle?"

Answer:

In Amazonian, Congolese, or Central American jungles, several elements from the list provided would likely be present. These environments are rich with biodiversity and complex ecological features, making the following elements relevant:

Animal Sign: Evidence of wildlife such as tracks, droppings, nests, and feeding marks are common in dense jungles. The variety of species in these regions would ensure ample opportunities to encounter such signs.

Animal Trail: Many animals create and use trails through the jungle to navigate, find food, and access water. These trails can become prominent pathways through the dense undergrowth.

Bog: While not universally present, some areas within these jungles can have bog-like conditions, particularly in regions with poor drainage and heavy rainfall, leading to waterlogged ground and stunted vegetation.

Encampment: Seasonal or temporary campsites set up by indigenous peoples, hunters, or researchers could be encountered. These encampments might have basic structures and signs of human activity.

Fishing Pond: Small bodies of water are common in jungles, often teeming with fish and other aquatic life. Such ponds would provide important resources for both wildlife and human inhabitants.

Footpath: Paths created by human activity or repeated animal use are common in jungles, often serving as crucial routes for movement and navigation through the dense forest.

Forage: The jungle is a rich source of wild fruits, nuts, and other edible plants. Areas with berry bushes or other foraging opportunities would be beneficial for travelers and local inhabitants alike.

Fresh Water: Clean, drinkable water sources are vital in the jungle. Natural springs, streams, and rainwater collections in rock basins provide essential hydration for wildlife and humans.

Game: Small animals suitable for hunting, such as birds, rodents, and other small mammals, are abundant in these environments, providing a reliable source of food.

Grazer: Large herbivores such as deer, tapirs, or other grazing animals may be present, offering opportunities for larger game hunting.

Hazard: Jungles are full of natural hazards, including dense underbrush, steep slopes, and rocky areas, making navigation challenging and sometimes dangerous.

Monster: While the term "monster" might be more mythical, in a realistic sense, this could represent encounters with large or dangerous wildlife, such as jaguars, crocodiles, or large snakes.

Predator: Natural predators are a significant part of jungle ecosystems. Encounters with animals like big cats, large reptiles, and predatory birds are common.

Shelter: Natural shelters such as rock overhangs, dense thickets, and large trees with exposed roots are valuable for protection against the elements and predators.

Tool Sign: Evidence of human presence, such as abandoned tools, carvings, or remnants of shelters, can be found in jungles, indicating past or present human activity.

Waterway: Rivers, streams, and creeks are vital components of jungle ecosystems, providing water for both flora and fauna and serving as transportation routes for humans.

Wildfire: While less common than in drier regions, wildfires can still occur in jungles, especially during dry seasons or due to human activity, creating significant danger and prompting wildlife to flee.

My response was, "What new things of this same kind ought to be found in such a jungle as described above?"

Answer:

In a dense and biodiverse jungle environment like the Amazon, Congolese, or Central American jungles, you might encounter several unique elements that complement the existing list. Here are some additional features specific to these types of jungles:

Epiphyte Gardens: High in the canopy or even lower down, you might find clusters of epiphytes—plants like orchids, bromeliads, and ferns that grow on trees. These micro-ecosystems support a variety of small animals and insects.

Canopy Bridges: Natural or human-made rope bridges high in the trees, used by certain tribes or adventurous explorers to navigate the dense jungle from above, providing a unique perspective and access to the upper layers of the forest.

Mangroves: In areas where the jungle meets the coast or riverbanks, mangrove forests with their distinctive, sprawling root systems provide crucial habitats for a wide range of wildlife and act as natural barriers against erosion and storm surges.

Fallen Giants: Large fallen trees, known as "nurse logs," that provide a habitat for numerous plants, fungi, and animals as they decompose, creating microhabitats and contributing to the forest's nutrient cycle.

Flooded Forests: Known as "igapó" or "varzea" in the Amazon, these are areas that are seasonally flooded, creating a unique aquatic-terrestrial habitat where fish swim among the trees during high water periods.

Liana Networks: Thick tangles of lianas (woody vines) that create complex networks, connecting trees and providing pathways for arboreal animals like monkeys, sloths, and various bird species.

Hidden Clearings: Small, hidden clearings within the dense jungle that might be created by natural events such as fallen trees or landslides, often rich in plant diversity and attracting various animals.

Medicinal Plant Groves: Areas where specific plants known for their medicinal properties grow in abundance. These plants are often utilized by indigenous peoples and could be a valuable resource for characters knowledgeable in herbal medicine.

Salt Licks: Naturally occurring mineral deposits where animals congregate to lick the salt, providing an excellent opportunity for observing wildlife.

Termite Mounds: Large, intricate termite mounds that are engineering marvels, often reaching several meters in height and providing homes for a variety of creatures.

Fruit Trees: Trees bearing tropical fruits such as mangoes, bananas, guavas, or papayas, which not only provide food but also attract a wide array of wildlife.

Poison Dart Frog Habitats: Specific areas with an abundance of colorful, but highly toxic, poison dart frogs. These areas would require careful navigation due to the potential danger posed by these small but lethal creatures.

Spirit Trees: Enormous, ancient trees that are considered sacred by local tribes. These trees might have carvings, offerings, or other signs of cultural significance, adding a mystical element to the jungle.

Cenotes: In Central American jungles, particularly in the Yucatan Peninsula, cenotes are natural sinkholes filled with fresh water. These provide crucial water sources and are often linked to ancient Mayan rituals.

Swarming Insects: Periodic swarms of insects like locusts or ants, which can dramatically alter the landscape and the behavior of animals and humans alike, creating both opportunities and hazards.

Camouflage Creatures: Animals and insects with extraordinary camouflage abilities, such as leaf-tailed geckos or stick insects, which blend seamlessly into their surroundings, making them difficult to spot and adding an element of surprise to encounters.

Ancient Ruins: Hidden remnants of ancient civilizations, such as stone structures, carvings, or artifacts, overgrown by jungle vegetation but hinting at past human activity and potential treasure or historical significance.

Waterfalls: Spectacular waterfalls, large and small, that not only serve as breathtaking natural landmarks but also create unique microhabitats around them, often teeming with life.

Me: No others?

Indeed, there are more unique features and elements that could be found in such rich and biodiverse jungle environments. Here are additional possibilities:

Glow-in-the-Dark Fungi: Certain types of bioluminescent fungi that emit a faint glow at night, creating an eerie but beautiful luminescent landscape in the dark jungle undergrowth.

Swarm of Bats: Large colonies of bats, particularly near cave systems or dense forest canopies, which could be encountered during their evening exodus to feed, creating a dramatic and dynamic environment.

Natural Springs: Small geothermal springs providing warm water, which could be used for bathing or soothing tired muscles, and might also have unique mineral properties.

Mushroom Forests: Areas dominated by large, colorful mushrooms, some of which may have medicinal properties or be highly toxic, requiring careful navigation and knowledge.

Spider Web Networks: Extensive networks of large spider webs constructed by communal or territorial spiders, posing both a navigational challenge and a potential threat.

Anthropomorphic Trees: Trees with naturally occurring shapes resembling human figures, often considered spiritual or mystical by local tribes, possibly serving as navigational markers or spiritual totems.

Butterfly Swarms: Dense swarms of butterflies, particularly around flowering plants or near water sources, providing a visually stunning and calming environment.

Cliff Faces with Petroglyphs: Sheer rock faces or cliffs adorned with ancient petroglyphs or rock paintings, indicating historical or spiritual significance and providing clues to the region's human history.

Pitcher Plant Fields: Areas dominated by carnivorous pitcher plants, which trap and digest insects, adding a unique ecological niche to the jungle.

Bird Colonies: Large nesting colonies of exotic birds, such as parrots, toucans, or herons, which can create a cacophony of sounds and vibrant sights, and may indicate nearby water sources.

Geysers: Natural geysers that periodically erupt with hot water and steam, providing unique geothermal features and potential hazards.

Swarm of Locusts: Periodic swarms of locusts that can decimate vegetation, drastically changing the landscape and availability of food for both wildlife and humans.

Silk Cotton Trees: Enormous silk cotton trees (ceiba trees) with massive buttress roots, often considered sacred and serving as important ecological hubs in the jungle.

Hidden Waterfalls: Small, hidden waterfalls that might be found deep within the jungle, creating secluded, picturesque spots often associated with myths or local legends.

Stalactite and Stalagmite Caves: Limestone caves featuring impressive stalactite and stalagmite formations, providing both shelter and a sense of awe-inspiring natural beauty.

Vine Bridges: Naturally occurring or human-made vine bridges spanning across ravines or streams, used by both animals and humans to traverse difficult terrain.

Salt Springs: Natural springs with high salt content where animals come to lick the mineral-rich water, serving as crucial meeting points for wildlife.

Blowholes: Coastal or riverine blowholes where water forcefully shoots up through rock formations, creating dramatic and sometimes dangerous natural spectacles.

Cacophonous Frogs: Areas where loud, diverse frog populations create a near-constant chorus, especially during the rainy season, which can both guide and challenge travelers.

Enchanted Groves: Mythical or spiritually significant groves of trees that are believed to have protective or mystical properties, often avoided or revered by local inhabitants.

Seasonal Flowering Events: Specific areas where seasonal flowering events occur, creating fields of vibrant colors and attracting numerous pollinators, adding to the jungle's biodiversity.

Natural Arches: Large natural stone arches or bridges formed by erosion, creating impressive natural structures that can serve as landmarks or points of interest.

Me: no others?

Certainly, here are some more unique features and elements that could be found in dense and biodiverse jungle environments like the Amazon, Congolese, or Central American jungles:

Underground Rivers: Subterranean rivers that flow beneath the jungle, often accessible through cave systems. These rivers can provide unique ecosystems and hidden water sources.

Firefly Meadows: Areas where fireflies congregate in large numbers, creating a mesmerizing light show at dusk and through the night, adding an enchanting quality to the jungle.

Bamboo Groves: Dense stands of bamboo, which grow rapidly and provide materials for construction, tools, and other uses. Bamboo groves can also create unique habitats for wildlife.

Leech Fields: Areas with high populations of leeches, often near water sources, which can pose a nuisance and health risk to travelers and animals alike.

Salt Flats: Rare but possible in some jungle regions, these are flat expanses of land covered in salt, left behind by evaporated water bodies. They provide a stark contrast to the surrounding vegetation.

Ancient Tree Carvings: Trees with carvings made by ancient civilizations or indigenous tribes, which can serve as historical markers and sources of cultural information.

Insect Swarms: Periodic swarms of insects such as mosquitoes, which can be overwhelming and dangerous, especially if they carry diseases.

Crystal Formations: Natural crystal formations found in caves or exposed rock faces, which can be beautiful and potentially valuable.

Mud Volcanoes: Small, active mud volcanoes that periodically spew mud and gases, creating unique geological formations and potential hazards.

Hidden Lagoons: Secluded lagoons that are difficult to access but provide serene, picturesque spots often teeming with wildlife.

Rock Paintings: Ancient rock paintings created by early human inhabitants, providing insights into historical and cultural practices.

Venomous Plant Zones: Areas dominated by plants that are poisonous or have defensive mechanisms like thorns or toxins, requiring careful navigation.

Parasitic Plant Invasions: Areas where parasitic plants like mistletoe or strangler figs have taken over, altering the local flora and creating unique ecological challenges.

Bird of Paradise Displays: Specific spots where Birds of Paradise perform their elaborate mating dances, offering a rare and spectacular natural show.

Sinkholes: Natural depressions or holes caused by the collapse of a surface layer, which can suddenly appear and pose significant risks.

Bioluminescent Bays: Coastal areas or river inlets where bioluminescent plankton thrive, causing the water to glow when disturbed, creating a magical nighttime experience.

Ant Gardens: Gardens created by ants cultivating specific plants for food or habitat, which can be fascinating ecological features.

Abandoned Villages: Remnants of ancient or modern human settlements, overgrown by jungle but still containing artifacts and structures that tell a story of past inhabitants.

Fumaroles: Openings in the earth's crust that emit steam and gases, often found near geothermal activity, adding a unique geological feature to the landscape.

Natural Amphitheaters: Naturally occurring formations that create amphitheater-like structures, possibly used by ancient civilizations for gatherings or ceremonies.

Spice Groves: Areas where wild spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, or cloves grow, offering valuable resources for both local inhabitants and travelers.

Flooded Caverns: Caverns that are partially or completely flooded, creating underwater passages and unique aquatic habitats.

Pygmy Forests: Areas with stunted tree growth due to poor soil conditions, creating a miniature forest landscape that contrasts with the surrounding tall jungle.

Air Plant Colonies: Clusters of air plants (epiphytes) that grow without soil, often on other plants or rocks, creating unique aerial gardens.

Wild Orchids: Dense areas where wild orchids grow in abundance, providing striking visual beauty and attracting various pollinators.

Camouflage Creatures: Animals with extraordinary camouflage abilities, such as leaf-mimicking insects or reptiles that blend seamlessly with their surroundings.

Erosion Sculptures: Natural rock formations sculpted by wind and water erosion, creating unique and often surreal shapes and structures.

Fruit Bat Colonies: Large colonies of fruit bats that roost in caves or trees, playing a crucial role in seed dispersal and pollination within the jungle ecosystem.

Underground Hives: Large underground nests of social insects like ants or termites, which can extend over vast areas and create complex tunnel systems.

Meteorite Craters: Rare but possible, craters formed by ancient meteorite impacts, often with unique geological features and potential for discovering rare minerals.

And chat is beginning to repeat itself.  This is SO easy.  'Course, someone has to sit down and piece out what gets a percentage, what groups of things can be clustered together under one umbrella, and how does this feature help the party find some other feature.  But the brainstorming stuff is no longer a problem for us.

Start Your Own

After much explanation of what a setting design entails, and evidence to that effect that I've provided over the years, I continue to urge the reader to invest their own time and the energy projects that might seem impossible to accomplish in the foreseeable future.  I understand the weariness that comes with an effort of this kind; and the reasons to quit.  Many times in my youth, long before I began this blog, I would go months without working on D&D in any way ... not only because I was busy with a young family and other things, but because I could not bring myself to create one more table or write one more line about anything.

My goal here is not to convince, but to put a bug in the reader's ear.  One day you too will be older, and have more free time than you have now.  One day you too will have much more personal experience with the game, and will have come to see shortcomings in the traditional game that will motivate you towards providing improvements.  I like to think that the reader won't have given up on the game altogether; that you'll yet retain some of the fascination with the game's parameters that inspired you in your youth, that can yet inspire you as the years wane.  I prefer to believe that some of what I say can worm itself enough into your thoughts that you'll remember that old guy and what he said about caring enough about the setting to invest real time into it.  These thoughts inspire me.  They're why I take the time to describe what a setting entails, and that anyone's good enough to do it once they've had on-the-job training, as it were.  There's no reason to surrender all the creative process to the "professionals," who are less concerned with how our worlds work and more with slapping something convenient together for not much pay.

The question arises, what do you, dear reader, get from all this effort.  It's not an income, at least not in the beginning.  And for quite a while, if you're critical at all of your own work, you'll feel compelled to hold what you do up to the light of other people's work — and that, without doubt, is a miserable way to reward the expenditure of your free time.  Time and again, too often, more than you'd like to admit, you're going to work awfully hard on some beloved project just to have your own players, the swine, treat it with indifference or contempt.

I'd tell you to refrain from comparing yourself, or judging yourself, or putting too much stock in how others judge you, but I might just as well whip the sea for bringing in the tide.  You will do these things; and you will be hamstrung for doing them, in ways that cripple your creative drive in ways that may make you quit daring to write your own material, or quit being a DM, or quit this game.  Truth is, if you can't see what all the work is for, you won't see the sense in doing it.  In fact, you'll argue successfully with yourself all the good reasons not to do it, as there are many:  for example, the sun is shining; there are wonderful beaches to visit, and ski slopes, and places to sail.  You could play baseball or video games.  You could even concentrate your efforts on your family or your career, or rise to be a relevant member of your community, even some person that's celebrated for your accomplishments.

Which, in the moment, you're sure won't happen if you keep fighting with your game's setting.

Okay.  Let's catch our breath.  Whatever you decide to do with your life, you're going to devote time and effort.  Because you read this blog, and other material about D&D, because you like the game (or whatever equivalent you prefer), it makes sense that you're expenditure of time would apply in some manner to this particular thing.  You've watched others do it ... and that has brought you from time to time to a way of thinking that takes possession of what your game world.

Think of how we speak of such things.  I casually refer to the setting in these posts as "MY setting.  My world.  Mine."  Creativity, among other things, conveys a sense of ownership that no other circumstance permits.  Intuitively, we all understand perfectly the difference between "My car that I bought" and "My car that I built from scratch."  Many have, since the age of 12, dwelt on the fantasy of gathering the tools and obtaining the space that would permit the making of a car, one loving detail at a time, from scratch ... or, if you prefer, the transformation of a piece of junk into a very cool, smooth-running machine.  Only, for most, it never seems to happen.  The space doesn't permit, it costs too much ... and as we get past 30, the outlay of time seems impossible.  Yet some still cling to the idea that maybe someday, when the kids are grown, and I'm retired, and I have enough money, I can clean out the garage and build my dream car.  Even though, probably, by then we wouldn't know exactly how.

A D&D setting is like that.  Beyond the work it requires, there's much to know.  It's not only understanding how the various parts function, or how to recognise the right part for the right model, there's all the fine work of machining and filing each part lovingly until it contributes just so to the ensemble, until the engine purrs delightfully under the hood.  It's not only making the car, it's having the car takes us places we want to go.

Understand, however, as difficult as all that is, upon starting we already have some joy in that this thing is something that's ours, that works as we want it to, and that for that reason it's unlike anything else that exists.  And as each part comes together, this is something for which we are right to take pride.  This is something we've done ... not someone else.  Good or bad as yet, frustrating or beneficial as we'd like, we own it.  It's uniquely ours.  Having this, we don't need other people to like it.  Even when the car is still a pile of junk in the garage, though it hasn't yet come together, we love the damn thing because we've put in all the work.  Our partner or sibling might scoff and joke and roll their eyes about "our project" in the garage, but we know it's because they don't understand.  If they could see our vision, and what we've done so far to bring this "hunk of junk" towards that vision, they'd be amazed.

This is because we remember every hard-fought-for-and-won moment of the process so far.  We were there for the painstaking calibrations and that endless search for a matching cylinder head ... and that gawddamned piston we had to bore out ourself because not a one could be found.  Those late nights spent working; that idea we had that went nowhere; those plans we made, and got half done, that are right now sitting on a shelf because we got stuck and stopped working on them.  The frustrations themselves become a repository for our memories.  Every time we see them, specific memories and moments of triumph pop up in our minds that — even if we can share the experience with no one else — make us feel like giants.  Along the way we've met people, we've been to places, we've learned things, we've expanded our store of good times ... and this despite the fact that we yet don't have a working machine, yet, that we can get in and drive.

I want to stress how these things contribute to our sense of accomplishment even when we have what other people would call, "nothing to show for all the effort we've taken."  Truth be told, working on something we love provides more than results or profit.  It's the afternoons, at the end of the work day, when we've gotten excited to get home and start getting real work done.  It's the bubbling feeling we've had when something fell into place, that makes us extraordinarily happen, even if no one else could possibly understand why.  It's the hundreds of hours that sped by because we were engrossed in our thing.  It's the way it keeps us thinking about the future.  And the way it keeps us young, as we watch others sit around without a thing to do. 

This, my dear readers, is how "personal growth" is accomplished.  It's how we change.  I know that for most of you reading this, you're already on this track.  You're nodding your head, you understand what I'm saying, you're recalling exact episodes that fit into my words.  But have you taken the time to consider how this process has made you into a different sort of person, as you've risen to each challenge?  Have you considered how much happier you are when you find someone with which to share, who desire, like you, to improve something and make it better?  Look at how all that "wasted" time drawing and designing and trying — and failing — has shifted your viewpoint away from other people who have never tried or failed anything.  You're not like them.  And not because your game world works, but because you HAVE one.

Don't let go of that.  Stop concerning yourself with the destination and concentrate on the journey.  Even now, you should realise that when the car's up and running, and you can drive it down to Maine or Puget Sound or Vancouver Island for the weekend, you'll be slowing down every time you see a junk in someone's yard ... wondering if that's your next project or not.

_____

If you wish to comment, please write questions, ideas or opinions to alexiss1@telus.net and they will be posted on Saturdays.

If you wish to make a donation to Patreon, it will be greatly appreciated and help with costs for illustrating the Streetvendor's Guide.

Along the Way

At the beginning of a running, my players usually arrive ebullient, arms full of food, folders, backpack, dice bags and so on — much more than they need, I think, because it seems like they're preparing to camp out for several days and not just a Friday evening.  They arrive in groups, as couples or as one heading out to fetch the lone player who has no car.  They unpack their gear, help me move the 120 lb. table from against the wall into the center of the room, sort out the location of their chair, dirty my dishes as they make up their food plates while, all the while, chatting constantly.  They hug me, they ask after me, they haven't heard from me in two weeks (they don't read this blog).  Now there's a 2-year-old running in circles underfoot, whom my partner Tamara will manage as she's decided D&D has become too stressful of late.  In all honestly, I think she better prefers being a grandmother.

Grazing on food takes up much of an hour, as does the plugging of cords, the outlay of dice trays to roll in, connecting to the internet (as access to the wiki is de rigueur), plus discussion of recent movies, global events, the best recent uploads to youtube and so on.  I talk, I rest, I gorge coffee and sugar, I work to get myself "in the mood."  If I don't call the game to start, this warming up period can spin into an hour and a half, two hours, three hours, possibly all night.

The best way to grab their attention is to stand up and say in a DM's voice, "Okay."

That brings silence and complete readiness.  No one has to do a last minute shuffle, push food out of the way, rush to the kitchen for a drink, or anything.  When I say okay, no matter when I say it, they're ready to go.  Just like that.  For all their casualness, they've been ready to start for quite some time.

And where do I start?

I ask the question of the players, "What do you want to do?"

This fits into all we've said thus far.  The game begins with the party's answer to this question.  We may have stopped the last session in the middle of a fight, but the continuation of that fight starts with the players stating their next round's action.  It may be that I don't get an immediate answer, because they party needs to collaborate on the question for a bit.  There are times when I rise, start the game, ask the question ... then go to the kitchen and refill my coffee, because I'm not needed.

For this post, let's suppose that the party has just awoken at the usual inn, this is their first session, and they answer the question, "We'd like to go to a dungeon."

"Excellent," I say.  "I just happen to have a dungeon ready.  Are you ready to leave, or do you still have equipment left to buy?"

This always seems to bring them up short, as they think, "Oh, yeah ... we had better get ready, hadn't we?"  So I provide them an equipment list, then go to the kitchen and get another cup of coffee.

They have questions, I answer.  They buy, they set about calculating their encumbrance, they loan each other money ... then they drift into casual discussions about things and when I see no one's eyes fixed on a screen, I ask, "Are you ready to go?"

A few last things and yes, they're ready to go.  I explain how they know about the dungeon (they grew up in this town where they're starting, so they already know all the rumours any NPC might know), they know what road to take to get sort of in the area, after which I explain they'll have to search.  This all follows some background exposition that several groups have already entered the forested mountain-hills next to the swampy-sandy lakeside, at the end of the trail-cart-track road, and never come back, so if they head out to said road, they ought to be on the right track.  That sounds right to the party, so they head out.

The reader shouldn't think that my description goes, "You leave town ... and you've just found the dungeon entrance."

As a DM, you may think that it's important to get the party to "the good part," but doing that would miss opportunities to deepen and enrich the players' connection with the setting.  My game's generator isn't a one trick pony.

The space between the town and the dungeon creates rhythm, a flow at which controlled time passes, according to how much experience I wish to insert between the players and their goal.  Rhythm in this case has a strong positive/negative polarity that increases as the party gets further and further from the town in pursuit of the dungeon.  While the dungeon is closer, the town's being farther away preys upon the players' sense of safety.  Should it matter that getting back to town in a hurry might decide a character's fate, if something happens, distance is key.

As is difficulty of terrain.  Both vertical upness and flooded downness create immense difficulties to travel, especially should an escape occur in which the party is being pursued by something unknown.  They know that every step forward is also one they'll have to take back; impressing the difficulty of the forward upon them, it builds tension.

Additionally, the harder it is to reach the dungeon, the more concerning and dangerous the dungeon becomes.  Something easy to get to can't possibly have anything really bad in it, or so parties tend to think.  Something really hard to reach is, maybe, and perhaps should be, out of reach.  Make the journey hard enough, and parties will stop and debate, arguing whether or not they want to go on.  This makes terrific gaming.  Not only is there an irrational fear at play, there's also pride and bravery that players ought to have, which is being challenged.  Forcing a balance between the two produces a feeling of adventure that can't be produced by an hour of meaningless flavour text.

During the rhythm of travel, too, there's the possibility of showcasing a part of the world.  Look at what the other people are doing; look at the world's layout in this small part; look at the people on the road and where they're going.  The players can meet persons travelling to some important city that they might want to travel to themselves.  They can see people working fields that someday might be a part of the player's own lands.  Envisioning the world, the players begin to shape a larger picture for their agenda, because it's all here, laid out in front of them.  It's not just a jump to the dungeon.  The world is a real place that the players are moving through.

Plus, there are hooks to cast.  Hey, there's a father walking along with two little girls, all three of them singing together, as they head off to town.  The party doesn't know it, but not long after they get back from the dungeon, they're going to see that same father standing on a scaffold, inches from death, as a town clerk asks if anyone's willing to pay for the father's bond to spare his life.  Oh, and here's a rather elaborate camp along the side of the road, where the tents are marked with a heraldic symbol of a three diamonds and a dagger; upon inquiry, the party is told its a travelling noble, and to "Move along, move along."  The party doesn't know it, but the ring they're going to find in the dungeon was owned by this noble's father, who died in the same dungeon 14 years ago.  And here's a peddler heading to the party's town, asking if the party wants to buy something from his rather sad little cart, where the pastries he has are stale, and the fruit on the overripe side.  The party doesn't know it, but this peddler survived the dungeon the party is about to enter, four years ago ... and after the party gets back to town, he's going to overhear them talking and ask if they encountered the "lizard door."  "What, no!" the party will answer, because there was no lizard door, whereupon the peddler will chuckle and walk away.  Though likely, the party won't let him.

So there we are ... three adventures in the queue, and the party hasn't even reached the dungeon yet.  Throw a couple of red herrings into the mix — a son helping his father fix a cart wheel, a tired woman beating out sheets in a stream bed, across from a dilapidated road house a mile out of town — and we're all set to see the wheels churn in the player's head as they struggle onwards to find that elusive entrance.  

Build this kind of pattern session after session, and you need never worry about the players "finding something to do."  There'll always be some connection they need to make, some person they do a favour for, some choice that seems imminent, just as soon as we get done what we're doing right now.  The realm of characters encircling the party, aiding them in their quests, choosing to stand against them, demanding something from them, sets out dozens of little goal posts that are ready to matter when the party has the time.

At first, you'll struggle thinking of examples like the one's I've just given.  But they'll come to you in time.  None of these are, in fact, time sensitive ... nor even by necessity game critical.  If the girls' father is hung, he's hung; oh well, it's a Medieval world.  If the players never do sell the ring, and thus never know it's a legacy, c'est la vie.  If they don't care about the lizard door, okay.  It isn't going anywhere.  The trick as a DM is to make these things fit into the player's ordinary behaviour, without ever forcing the encounter.  Make each part of the narrative "happen" in its own time, with its own rhythm.  With practice, and patience, a DM can understand why we don't have to throw out the hook until the time is right.  When the players happen to be in the centre of town.  When the player wearing the ring happens into the company of someone who recognises it.  When the players happen to be talking about the dungeon, when they're supposed to be at the bar, or shopping, or hanging outside their inn getting their horses saddled to ride out of town.  And what do you know?  The peddler happens to be right there.

4 Things You Should Work On

Time to apply this concept of working to role-playing games.  

1.  Pick a system.

Notice, I say a "system," not a genre.  If I so wanted, I could easily run a modern day spy adventure with guns and smart bombs using the basic D&D system.  I could run a campaign set in the future.  I could build an old west campaign, or a Roman campaign, simply by applying basic premises.  All characters have a set collection of ability stats, hit points and skills.  These are applicable regardless of the setting; the only thing that might need to be changed is the "skin" on the character.  Rather than a fighter, Rolf Brand of the Galactic Empire is a "marine" or a "space ranger."   Janie Jewel the mage is a "scientist."  All other principles are easily adaptable.

I can see how this might be unclear to many who allow themselves to be taken with the specific words used to describe specific characteristics.  It's the concepts that matter, however, not the words.  Rolf still has to decide what to do; he still needs to hit with his neucron-discharger.  He still dies.  There's still some expectation he gets better with the tools he has and how hard he is to kill, the longer he survives.  Interactivity with the setting is managed just fine by the base D&D game rules ... and there are quite a number of other game systems that are equally as flexible.

I wouldn't say that describes 5e or pathfinder, which are so dependent upon genre-based jargon words to describe what the characters are doing, what I called a codex in an earlier post.  But Masquerade would certainly work, as would Traveller, most gurps systems, and I think Call of Cthulhu, though I have limited contact with it.  I could definitely run a fantasy-like setting with the Traveller system, with a few years of work testing.  Remember that I spent at least ten years of game-testing D&D before making it interact between players and a fantasy setting how I wanted.  It would take me no more than a few weeks to put my present D&D characters into a space adventure, if I wanted to do so.

2.  Learn the rules.

Seriously.  Read every book cover to cover, then do it again.  Then start rewriting rules exactly as you think they should work, exactly as if you were the game's inventor.  Write the whole rule, both the parts you want to change and the parts you want to keep.  Then start doing that with every rule that you can't look at in the book without needing to correct it's meaning or its grammar for the player.

Yes, of course this is a lot of work.  Do it.  Enjoy how much work it is.  Enjoy discovering the various nuances of the game rules, and pay attention to what further rule or idea each suggests.  When you find yourself getting bored of the work, turn on some music and low volume and keep working.  When that doesn't work, put on a movie you've seen a hundred times, one you don't need to look up at, and keep working.  Print copies of your work; put them in attractive binders or physically make them into books, with needle and thread.  Keep listening to music or movies as you work, thinking about how cool this is going to be when you show your players and other people.

Most of all, not only will you know the rules cold, in the end they'll be your rules.  You'll have rewritten them ... and in rewriting them, it'll be a final decision on your part that maybe you'll defend.  "No, no, no," you'll say, "That only applies in this circumstance.  Here it is in the book I've spent twenty hours binding with thread and covering with leather.  Try something else."

3. Don't quit.

If you're like virtually everyone else who tried to run a game or make your own setting, long before you get ten pages of new rules, or finish your first map of your new game setting, you'll already be thinking about quitting.  This is because you're bored.  You may think this is a response to the thing you're doing being dull and repetitive, that in retrospect the cool new world you were going to make isn't that cool or even that new.  But you'd be wrong.

In actual fact, your boredom is a defense mechanism against you ever becoming valuable as a person.  In your youth, whenever you raised your hand in school, or got singled out by other peers or by a teacher, or got assigned to work by your parents when you'd really rather have just sat playing video games, the experience really sucked.  An equation rose in your lizard brain: (a) doing something that stands out gets you noticed; (b) getting noticed is a form of humiliation.  Solution: do as little as possible.  Don't get noticed.

Having reached an age older than ten, if you need this list (and for the record, I didn't), then it's evidence that you're not ready to do anything exclusive to your own creativity.  Creative things stand out.  They make people notice you.  And since most creative things, at the start, are just plain awful, most of the initial notice comes in the form of, "Jeebus fuck, who created this piece of shit?"  Which is definitely humiliating.  It's also something you'll have to go through to create anything of worth ... which, most likely, is something you've never learned to handle.  So boredom is the thing that protects you from all that.  As soon as anything becomes difficult, or seems to indicate your spending a lot of time on something — indicating you care about something — the boredom reflex kicks in and stops you.  Caring about something is bad.  Therefore, the amount of time your brain lets you care about anything you do is, oh, about two weeks.  Then it's safe to pretend to care about something else.  Just so long as nothing gets actually done, and therefore noticed.

If you don't believe any of that, congratulations, you've joined the ranks of all the rest.  If, on the other hand, you'd like to get past this boredom thing and actually do something, then seat this thought in your head: if you don't make this game world happen, you're a loser.  A great big piece of shit loooooser, and you might just as well stop pretending you'll ever be a DM and just accept that you're a mere player.

Cruel?  Yes.  But then, we have to get past all that cruel shit that your parents and teachers did to you when you were just a little child only half their height.  You're an adult now, and you ought to be able to handle a few cruel things.  So push through that boredom and keep working.  It's what you do at work, after all, for pay.  If you can't work long boring hours at something you care about, when you're willing to do it for someone else's money, well, we know what that makes you ... don't we?

4. Choose a setting.

Let's pretend you're still working.  When the players sit at your table, they're going to ask, "What do we see?"  It's a good idea to have an answer.  Unfortunately for you, it only takes about 30 seconds to describe a tavern, and you've got 3 to 5 hours of game to run ... so you'll need quite a lot of setting.  A dungeon with three or four rooms might get you through one night (though it's a bit thin, I think), but if you really want to be a DM, you've got 20 or 30 years to plan for.  Conservatively.  So in thinking about what your setting is, and what it offers, and how long it takes to describe, think big.

The main difference between rewriting rules, which you'll find yourself occasionally doing, and making a setting is that the first is at least visibly finite.  You can see there's a last page to the book and that if you keep working, you'll eventually get there.  Unfortunately, the game setting doesn't work like that.  The players eat voraciously through game setting every time they play and you'll find yourself scrambling to stay ahead of them.  It won't be easy.

Think of it this way.  Imagine that starting next week, you've just been given a job as a high school math instructor.  It has an impossible salary of $65K a year and forgiven property taxes on your new house — the community is just that desperate for a math teacher.  Unfortunately, until now, you've been looking for a job as a physical education instructor.  You haven't done any math since you yourself were in grade 12 and now, in just seven days, you need a lesson plan and you need to know more than your students ... who, as it happens, were taking grade 10 math just two months ago.

Now, you can try and wing it.  Chances are, if you act with a lot of authority, even if you look like a fucking idiot to the students they won't say anything.  Students are like that.  But believe me, even though they keep coming to your class, because they want to graduate someday, they are never, ever, going to respect you.  And that disrespect is going to carry over to every other student throughout the school, who have never taken a class from you but definitely know who you are, and what a loser teacher you are.  Worse, it will carry over into next year, and all the ones after, since the new grade tens will get told by last years' grade tens and elevens that the math teacher in room 229 is a total dickwad.  They'll know this before they sit down in your class.  And it won't matter in a year or two that you've gotten better, that you know math pretty well now.  It's too late.  You've got a reputation.  Your only hope is to move to another school.  If you can find one that isn't willing to ask the other faculty of your school, who also know about you, what kind of teacher you are.

If that's not what you want, then you're going to have to buckle down and sweat the next seven days like nothing you've ever suffered through before.  And not just one week, either.  You have to stay ahead of these students every single day, which means hour after hour of you being smarter than they are.  And you have to do this without losing your composure, without showing that you're feeling any stress in front of the students — because if you fail in this, they may think you know what you're doing, but they'll still think you're a miserable wretch of a human being.

This metaphor is meant to get across two basic principles of being a good DM.  First, that even if you think you're such a great shit that you can "wing it," bet your ass what you think and what your players think are not the same thing.  Because they won't tell you.  Ever.  They'll tell each other.  They'll marvel over your ego, your cheap efforts, your apparent delusion that you're a great DM, but these things will never be said to your face.  For the time being, at least you're running.  That's a tick in your favour.  But it's probably the only one, and if they can find somewhere else to go, they will.

Second, knowing what you're doing and working hard isn't enough.  You're not entitled to be a fuck-tard.  If you are, rest assured that this too will be kept secret from you.  But your players will know, and any new players will be reassured that yes, their first impression is absolutely right.  You are a fuck-tard.  It's a pity, too, because if you weren't one, you'd be a half-decent DM.

So ...

In working on your setting, have enough of it for every session and do it with such panache that it feels to the players like you're falling off a log.  For a long time, that won't be easy.  For a long time, you'll feel very needy, wanting to be told that yes, you are a good DM and yes, they are liking the sessions.  But the only opinion that ever counts is that they keep showing up.

If they keep showing up, and you seem not to be wallowing every session, and tempers don't seem to be flaring, than you're likely doing very well.  Keep at it.  Keep expanding your setting.  Keep rewriting the rules.  Keep working.  This is no time to quit.  200, 300 more hours of play, it'll almost feel like you've got this in hand.  A few thousand hours later, you'll be so ready to work on your game, you won't want to do most other things.

That's when you become a recluse, like me.

Deciding on Monsters

Let's take this a little slower.  Using the map from the previous post, republished here, suppose we starting the players in a lesser village, say Vardarac.  From previous work I've done, the type of hex (4) indicates a village with 2 hammers ... thus, a small temple, hostel, day market, bakery, hovels, a windmill and so on.  Nothing really special, but still decently settled.

Incidentally, Vardarac is real, though a Google map search only shows the village has been depressingly modernised.  The image from google maps is reminiscent of the kind of thing we see in small town Saskatchewan or Manitoba, here in Canada.

From here we want to decide on the monsters that will "kill the party."  We don't really want to kill anyone, but let's admit that having dangerous monsters available for the party to contend with remains a big part of D&D.  The chicken shown might be formidable, but it's not exactly what we're looking for.

The above map gives us some good locations: there are numerous swamps up and down the Drava and Danube rivers, which are surely inhabited by something; there are the rivers themselves, offering water beasts; east of Apatin there's a forest nearly seven miles across ... and of course any hex on the map that's even a little green has copses of forest that are anywhere between a mile and three miles wide.  Vardarac is in just such a green hex, so we can envision small forests near the village, with their east and southern edges meeting the swampy areas next to the rivers.

The area is upon the borderland between Hungary on the northeast and Slavonia on the south and west.  In my game, these are both controlled by the Ottomans, and therefore this is only a "provincial" border. The swamp is innundated deciduous forest land, covered with water in flood season (3-4 months after snowmelt), turning to brush & mud flats with autumn and eventually hard, dry dirtpan between trees as the land freezes with winter.  Because of this difficult-to-patrol area between constabularies, we can assume the forests are full of thieves, bandits, even river pirates since the rivers are important traffic routes.  

We might equally assume there are places in the swamp where even the criminals won't go — which grants a potential hook.  Classic D&D would have this be a "rumour," which is a lazy means of exposition.  Since the party is starting in Vardarac, we can assume their locals and they already know where the bad places are.  Don't go into the swamp south of Darda; river pirates dwell on the Danube's offshoot north of Kopa; the old abandoned manor north of Vardarac is haunted ... these are things the party would have heard about all their lives.  Who knows if those are true warnings or not?  They are a place to start.

But "where" isn't the real problem.  Our larger requirement is a sustainable setting, which asks for monsters that make sense in the environment — and by this, I don't just mean that swamp monsters belong in a swamp.  The city of Osijek and the surrounding towns are ALSO part of the environment.  These places are filled with professional soldiers, knights, nobles, wealthy merchants with hundreds of river sailors and guards ... whose livelihood relies upon not being attacked by river pirates and oh, say a dragon turtle, conveniently floating in the middle of the Danube.  Anything truly big, or overtly accessible, should have been found by some non-player professional, and therefore shouldn't be there for the party to find.

Additionally, we should assume that whatever's out there doesn't exist in convenient lame-scale D&D sizes.  Oh, sure, we can have the party kill half a dozen bivouacked goblins or an owl bear that's somehow escaped the net of professional hunters, but that does not make a sustainable campaign.  It makes a session, maybe, if that.  No, what we want is some sort of monster that the party can fight for a while, settled somewhere between the trees and mudflats where it's deliberately kept from being noticed.  Perhaps a small cadre of doppelgangers, though I'm borrowing from my own earlier campaigns with that one.

How about a legion of huge spiders, mysteriously gestating from a source within the swamp?  This has potential, since we could have so many spiders that yes, the various local leaders and hunters are themselves overwhelmed.  Local talk could start along the lines of, "Doesn't it feel like there's more spiders that usual, lately?"  Followed by the burgher of Vardarac calling the villagers together to assemble a hunting party to clear out the infestation of spiders that are harrying the farmers along the eastern woodlands.  A bounty per spider could be offered ... and as the 1st level party engages, they do rather well.  These spiders only have 2 hit dice, and perhaps have a weak poison, or can only deliver one dose a day ... certainly not a poison that outright kills.  Maybe they're wolf spiders and have no poison at all.

But as the party continues to engage, there seem to be a lot more still ... and at last they're forced to withdraw, as all the hunters are.  A call is made for help; local constables arrive and the battle is re-engaged.  Do the players take part?  That's up to them.

Next they learn this spider problem has affected many places throughout the swamps, from Petrijevei to Sonta.  They learn the spiders appeared in such numbers in Apatin that the town was literally under siege, until a grouping of mages were able to reduce the numbers.  Speculation arises that the spiders are coming from some place ... perhaps if that place were identified, the local lords could deal with it directly; if only there were a group of scouts willing to plunge into the swamp and locate the source.

But then, where might that be?  A helpful librarian might know the answer; perhaps some subtle clue exists for the players to witness and upon which to build a theory.  Wouldn't it be interesting if, when the players did enter the wilderness at the guessed at place, suddenly, no spiders.  Hm.  That's ... telling.

The problem with examples is that they derail the real point — that whatever monsters we choose, they must fit the wholistic nature of the environment.  There are swamps here, but none are more than 3-5 miles from human settlement.  An underground setting is impractical because the water table's so high, the sub-surface is porous and impossible to build down into.  A mysterious tower within the swamp makes no sense — the excessive water in the soil denies the growing of any really big trees, which would fall over in a flood, so a high enough tower to be adventured in would be noticed.  And approached, in order to tax the owner and question their appearance within this already-owned swamp.

So we're rather limited to surface, secretive adventure models.  Something which the party is the first to discover, or which represents a problem too big for the area to manage easily.  Very often, good adventures are made from the party stumbling around and finding something that simply hasn't be found before.  Virtually every horror movie follows this trope — and a great many thrillers, also.  For example, the party is walking through the woods and discovers three trolls who have swum their way downstream from the hills to the west ... and there are hills just 40 miles that way, surrounding the upper Drava.  Or perhaps there are three treants who have been here for two hundred years ... and perhaps haven't even moved in all that time.  Heck, a treant could grow to full size in the middle of a town, without anyone suspecting for a moment that it's a treant ... until someone decided to cut it down.

Another interloping sort of design is the "disaster."  A plague ship arrives in Osijek and is forced to moor in quarantine across the river.  It's there for a week, with the crew dying one after another; but any who try to escape the ship are shot full of arrows or obliterated by a mage.

Then, unexpectedly, a fire breaks out aboard ship; there are screams, and burning bodies throwing themselves into the river ... but this isn't the problem.  The problem is that the rats aboard ship abandon it.  Hundreds of rats, streaming out in every direction, soon to infect other rats — and in a different way we've reproduced the spider narrative.

Or perhaps it isn't a plague; perhaps it's a ship full of ghouls.  Upstream, one ghoul got aboard and before anyone could deal with it, a dozen crew members were infected.  Now the ship runs aground outside Apatin, while the former crew of 160 now emerge and stumble into the town.  Of course, many would be killed, but all of them?  And so instead of rats or spiders, it's ghouls, with the party stumbling across them from time to time ... perhaps encountering an isolated hamlet that's been completely transformed ...

None of these possibilities challenge the status quo.  Despite the rats, the spiders or the ghouls, despite what treants or trolls might do before they're dealt with, the wagons continue to roll, the ships continue down the rivers, even as the number of plague victims begin to stack up.  The setting's structure and function is maintained ... and the players are free to find ways to press their advantage, either by meeting these problems head on, or using the distraction to find their way into other activities that might be more difficult if the local lords weren't away fighting ghouls.