For Call Of Cthulhu Fans

The small box is in an empty house, most likely on the second floor. Upon looking in the right room, the box can be seen at once, sitting on the floor across from the room’s entrance. It is nine inches by eleven, and three inches high. The box is rather flimsy, perhaps made of heavy cardboard. There is a lid. The box is not heavy, and as it’s lifted, a slight bit of shaking indicates the presence of small objects in the box. There is something ... unpleasant ... about the sound. Something that can’t be expressed.

Upon opening the lid, the box will be found to contain the pieces of a puzzle. Most of the pieces are black or deep blue, some with specks of yellow. The backing of the pieces is a hard, hospital green.

There will come a strong compulsion to put the pieces together. There will be no chance whatsoever of the box, or its contents, being left in the room. The need to remove the puzzle from the room, to be sure that it does not come to harm, will be overwhelming. A strong sensation of needing to protect the contents of the box will pervade any decision about where the box is taken, or where it is put. If the box is not placed where it can be easily seen, it will be felt that the contents are not safe. Sleeplessness will result if the box is not safe.

All who see the box will lightly feel interested in opening it. Those who see the puzzle will want to put the pieces together. This will seem to be something that is very much a correct thing to do.

A sizable area will be needed to lay out the pieces, a very large table. It will be difficult to estimate the total number of pieces, and distractions of thought or of things happening about will serve to cause anyone counting the pieces to lose their place, or mix sorted piles together. Eventually the mind will settle on the comfortable belief that there are certainly more than a thousand pieces, and cease to worry about it.

Upon seeking out the edge pieces, the fitter will find they come quickly to hand, but this ease will be dismissed as luck, or chance, or perhaps even skill. Thus the frame of the puzzle will take shape almost at once. It will be evident that one long edge is the sky, while the other seems to be the hardly-lit pavement of some street.

It will be easy to discern the pieces that make up the sky, so the fitter will likely place those together first. A skyline of distant buildings, a collection of steeples, stacks and towers. The fitter will be pestered of a vague recollection that suggests the skyline is familiar, but the name of the city will not come past the tip of the tongue.

Having now some experience with the colors of the pieces, the fitter will move onto to street ... and will detect that the yellow specks are bits of light – from windows and street lamps. The details of these lights, the shadows now evident which the lights can be ceased to cast, will surprise the fitter, as prior they seemed but splotches. But now here it can be seen that this is the light to a distant living room, wherein the occupant’s hand can be seen pulling the curtain closed. Here is a street-lamp where the lamper is lighting the wick.

Overall, there is a great deal more detail than was first witnessed. The street is put together, showing the curbs sweeping in a gentle curve to the right, with gray iron fences and houses shrouded behind the trees in the front yards. The street ends some inches up from the bottom of the edge of the picture, at a curb and a low stone wall that the fitter conjectures must surround the house at the picture’s centre.

Yet most of the pieces continue to be black in color. As they are sorted and resorted, the fitter is able to steadily find piece after piece that makes this little bit of the puzzle here, or up there ... but the overall picture is denied. But still, there is a sense of moving towards something, of making one’s way inside.

A piece that hasn’t been seen before, with half a visible face, is now discovered.  For a long time, and with much searching, the other half the face is found.  Together the two pieces fit into a place along the wall.  Looking at the completed visage, the fitter notes a distinct likeness in the face, and feels amused by it.  The face is atop a person who is standing behind the wall.  Another piece shows the person is pointing at something.  Something further away.  The fitter leans in close ... the artwork of the figure’s hand is astonishing.  The hand appears to be almost shaking ...

At once the fitter will realize something is horribly, awfully wrong.  A terrible comprehension suggests that the puzzle must be dismantled, and at once.  But the hands remain lax.  There is no energy to undertake the task.  Hundreds of pieces have been fitted together.  To take them apart again would be an exhausting proposition.

The fitter's eyes cast over the remaining unattached pieces, and sees a dozen at once that would fit into various places of the puzzle that have been studied throughout the afternoon ... or has it been the evening?  The fitter looks outside and sees that it is dark.  The room about is lit by lamps.  Was it not day when the task began?  It could have been the early evening.  The fitter cannot remember when last food was eaten, or anything else that has been done since waking except to construct the puzzle.

Suddenly its realized that in wondering about the time, some five or six pieces have been absentmindedly added to the construction.  The fitter vows not to add another.  With enormous effort, the chair is pushed back, the body pulled to an upright position.  The gaping hole in the center of the puzzle draws the eye, and the hand reaches back for the chair.  But with resolve, it is pulled up instead to cover the eyes, and a few staggering steps are taken backwards.  In panic, the room is abandoned, the door slammed closed on the vexatious, fragmented thing.

The house is empty.  A rapid search produces no one, only a note that the other occupants have left on some errand.  Staring through the windows at the outside darkness, it is wondered what foray could have taken them into the night.  Moments later, the matter is forgotten, shelved, as something that can be dispensed from the mind and not taken up again until their reappearance.

Some distant thought of eating or drinking is quashed in the sudden need for sleep.  Moving past the door holding fast the room containing the puzzle, the body is taken up the stairs to bed, undressed, dressed again and laid between the sheets.  The eyes are closed.

But sleep does not come.  Not in the complete and certain understanding that the puzzle must be taken apart.
Sweat rises from every pore.  An ague grips the body, as a chill accompanies the understanding that the stairs will have to be descended and the door to the room opened again.  The very idea breeds exhaustion in the blood.  With exhaustion ought to come sleep, but there is only the fever and an acute awareness of the body's weight, its pressure upon the mattress of the bed, the effort it will require to lift it from its place of rest, a place where it desires to remain.

A strenuous exertion brings the legs to the side of the bed and hangs them over the floor.  The hands follow, gripping the mattress and pulling upon the torso.  Somehow the mechanism is made to stand, and standing, made to lurch towards the bedroom door.  The dressing gown is abandoned, the feet left bare.

Beyond the door, the stairs are a black well, like that in the center of the picture.  Without a light comes the descent into the blackness.  Shadows from the main floor windows tell the whereabouts of the door that must be opened.  Feet shuffle across the hall floor.  A shaking hand grips the doorknob.  The door comes open.

Inside, the lamps continue to burn.  They have not been put out.  The puzzle remains where it was left.  It asks to be put together.  Obedience suggests a great comfort.  But stalwart, resolved, the puzzle is approached to do battle with the puzzle's will.

Clumsy fingers claw up the first piece and drop it with the unfit others.  A second piece is added to the pile, and then a third.  It cannot be done with both hands.  One hand must gain strength from the table where it grips, holding the body steady.  A fourth piece, and then a fifth.  And steadily the destruction steadily continues.  The wall is dismantled, the street is torn up, the skyline broken and the sky obliterated.  With the breaking of the edge comes strength.  At last, with both hands, the last two joined pieces are separated.  The pieces are loaded into the box.  The box is closed.

Something must be done with it.  The first thought, to build a fire in the yard and burn it, is put aside at once.  Whatever lives within must not be released.  The box must be put somewhere.  Somewhere safe.  Somewhere that no person will feel compelled to open it, or commence upon the puzzle's completion.  Others are not as strong.  Others will fail to return from the brink.

It must be hidden.  It must not be found.  The mind fixes upon a vault.  A vault that will not be opened.  And then, upon the thought's heels, the understanding that when one dies, vaults are opened, and the contents put in the hands of descendents.  One's children, who will not know what it is.

It will not be safe if it is hidden, thinks the mind.  But it must be hidden, thinks the mind.  But it cannot be hidden.  But it must be ... but it cannot be ...



Post Script

Virtually all of this above results from the dream I had last night.  I wish I could say it was unusual ...

Out Of The Stone Age

D&D is still living in the stone age, at least in the descriptions or the videos I see on line, made in the last four years. Paper character sheets, graph paper maps, pencils, miniatures…dice…these things made sense for 1979, but here we are thirty years later and embracing these things as though they were the game, as though our imaginations are dependent on the manner in which the mechanics are managed. For three years now I’ve been running my games from a lap top - no paper at all. When I want to give one player a private bit of information, I create a page on the desktop, minimize everything and then show it. Why would I write out a paper note? So the player can remember what he’s been told? Are you given paper notes by the trees and rocks you see, and everyone you converse with?

I realize there is a tight, nostalgic clique for these things. I once mentioned that most of my players showed up for a running with their own lap tops, and was told by DMs - not to specifically name any - that they would punish their players. Me, I think its fabulous.

When I think about what I would do with money applied to the game, along with my secretary, I think electronic interaction. I see the bits with computer-generated graphics in Iron Man and Quantum of Solace (which I didn’t like, by the way), and I think, “When do I get my hands on that?”

Because there ought to be a graphic interface screen in the center of every table. Get rid of the cheap drawings and the paper maps with border limitations and the expensive, soon-to-be-pummelled-into-indistinguishable-lumps miniatures and lets have a table-top battle map which will enable my players to be farther apart than 48 hexes. Lets have maps which can be touched to reveal other maps, and maps which can be three-dimensional.

And let’s have a system whereby every player can individually manipulate his or her movements on that map, without being able to affect anyone else’s movement. Let’s have total interface capabilities, so that I can show an image on each individual’s computer of what THEY and THEY ALONE can see, and force other players to move blind when they don’t have knowledge of what the fighter is going through behind the door.

I have talked it over with players, and I can understand that they don’t want to stop throwing dice. For them, the dice are personal, tangible manifestations of their characters and the physical action of attacking, doing damage, throwing for safety and what have you. I would not, I think, ever insist that players give up the throwing of dice, however archaic they may be.

But I have to say, as a DM, I feel none of that. I don’t give a rat’s ass if the goblin hits or not. I’m throwing for fifty, sixty goblins here, and it’s hard to get emotionally attached. I have already made the concession that it makes sense - algorithms be damned - to generate hit points in Excel. I could happily design an Excel spreadsheet (working on one in my head) that would let me roll as many monsters as I wanted at once, and generate damage, at a click. And then save a lot of time in a mass combat by saying, “These two guys hit, take seven damage, those four guys miss, three of these twelve bowmen hit; the mage takes four, the thief takes two and the ranger takes one.” And just rattle that off so the players can get back to strategy and success without having to sit and wait while I roll and roll and roll.

Oh, sure, there might be some tension lost…watching your friend get stomped while the dice haven’t been rolled on YOU yet. But after enough combats, you know that flavour declines, and mostly you just want the combat to move. I don’t see my players sitting on the edge of their chairs waiting for me to move up the legions against them. For them, it’s mostly a moment to go to the bathroom, stock up on fuel, etc. For myself, after thirty years of die rolling, I don’t care if I ever roll a die as a DM again. I think I, too, would want to roll dice for a character I was playing, but its just a hassle which holds up running a game.

(I know there are those of you who would penalize a player for leaving a table during a combat. I’ve played with people like you. You find that stick comfortable, do you?)

As for role-playing, have you seen Sims 2. This, without question, would be dead fabulous for defining character features, since the game allows you to make not just beautiful avatars, but ugly ones also. Given the money and time to design the application, players without a natural artistic ability (hey, I’m one) could manage a passable figure for their character. As DM, I’d look over their shoulder and suggest they might be a bit uglier or more attractive in keeping with their charisma, with artists much smarter than me providing maybe a grading scale. Or maybe not. Beauty is relative.

The real genius is not the application of an avatar-making program for players, but for NPCs! Ah, if I could have a recognizable image for every NPC I use to interact with the party, something unique and instantly familiar, which the party could actually feel an emotional attachment or revulsion for, that would fit perfectly into campaigning. The textual feeling of having an image to talk to, be in fear of, or hesitate before mindlessly slaughtering (a dozen faces of innocent looking hobgoblin children)…so that the circuitry of the brain might kick in when the player’s are NOT playing. Imagine one of your players saying to you, “Remember when we slaughtered that hobgoblin village? I actually had a dream last night where I saw the faces staring up at me while I cut them to pieces with a sword. I woke up shaking.”

I could probably throw out more. It’s Sunday morning and I’m a bit fried and unmotivated to write. (It’s amazing I wrote this much). I might write more sometime about the application of electronics to D&D, but this should already open a few of those doors. I think we really should be thinking about what we can do with the technology, and let go of our graph paper.

I’m about $4,000 away from having at least a limited enough table-top display with accompanying programs and interfacing that would let me get rid of my canvas graph-board and my miniatures (with their appallingly limited number of wolves, rats, gelatinous cubes, ropers, mind flayers and shedu) forever.

That would be sweet.

Good Investment

Having written the rant on why I wouldn’t give two hoots for the game community, I’ll make a plug for what I would love to do had I the means…that would be, to run my world really well.

First off, I’d love to have a secretary. I envision it as a full-time job, about $45,000 a year, in which I would need someone with a good grounding in history, literature, office skills and graphic design. Having a better understanding of computer dynamics and programming would be principal regarding whom I might hire. The individual would have to have excellent social skills, a powerful memory and would have to have a strong perfectionist streak. I imagine I would go through a series of candidates before finding one who was able to perform consistently and to standard.

The working hours would be fairly odd: four days a week, exchangeable, from nine A.M. to five P.M., during which a mass of hard research, design and idea development. Much of this work would be, for many people, quite boring, such as systematically going over every city in the world which I have not previously researched and adding it to my already bloated system; fixing my bloated system; preparing methodology and programming in order to simplify my bloated system; and adding additional as-yet inconceived of material to my bloated system. Since I would only sometimes be working on my system during those same hours, and other hours which fit in with my schedule, the secretary would have to gain a firm understanding on why things were done, and be able to remember and explain why decisions were made at given times. I would have to trust the secretary to make correct, reliable decisions so that I wouldn’t have to go over the work again, and thus productivity could be increased. Since I have a talent for delegation, I don’t find this a problem.

The fifth shift every week would be the Saturday night running, in which the secretary would be employed from four P.M. until midnight, with overtime compensation to be offered for long games. During the game, the secretary, well-versed in both my system and the system from AD&D, as well as at least as many role-playing game systems as I myself have (in order to make interpretive rule suggestions when called for), would have all the information regarding combat, spells, magic items and so on at their fingertips—i.e., when something was asked regarding a particular rule, it would be fabulous if the secretary was able to either A) quote the rule verbatim or B) have fast hands.

After some period of experience, once the secretary was familiar with my perspective and methodology, it would be desirable if they were able to “run” the campaign in my absence, or if they were able to run this half of the party while I was elsewhere running the other half of the party, allowing for a lot of interesting dual adventures with potentially harrowing or hilarious results. Since this person would be working for me, I would be able to countermand any problematic conflicts, while it would be very much in my interest to give them a free hand in order to develop excellent running skills of their own. The fringe benefit in that would be to be able to run in my own world, during which time I would disallow myself the privilege of having the “last say,” which I would not need as I would have come to trust this person.

If it happened that this resulted in an increase in participants, it might then be interesting to hire new persons to work part time on the development of the system and full time on Saturday nights. I think it would require one additional hired DM for every additional six regular players. If it became quite popular, some sort of registration would be involved, but since I see doing this out of the income I would earn as a writer, I don’t see there being the need for fees in the early stages. Later on, it happens that a certain class of people are unable to treat something with respect unless they pay money in order to “join,” but because I don’t especially like that class of people and because it would spoil the free and interactive discourse of the experience, I would put that off until it became absolutely necessary. I see that circumstance arising when there might be so many people interacting in the game that they might not know each other except by face, and that only by the recognition that people have paid for the right to be there could respect be managed.

Unfortunately, this also creates a circumstance in which that certain class believes that once they have paid, they are automatically deserving of respect. Which they aren’t. Also, it creates that circumstance whereby different classes of people feel they have the right to lord their long status over noobs. This would have to be policed firmly, which I think would only be possible through a joint resolution on the part of those DMs operating at each table, whose quality would be managed by me.

Yes, that’s right, it’s all about the power. Heh heh heh.

But what the hell, I’m paying for everything, right? And like any business, the CEO makes the final decision, after listening to the board of directors. I think that with careful hiring standards and an expectation for creativity and self-education, I could build a board of directors with an unusually high quotient for detecting bullshit and keeping a positive order.

Once again, with four or five DMs running 20-30 people weekly, all in the same world and all operating according to the same rules, some very interesting interactions could start to develop between this group of players making a power play against another group, or with different groups gathering together into different campaigns. I see a scene where group one meets with group two, they exchange materials and information, and then party members as the two mages in the one group decide to split up to make better use of their talents.

If all the parties were willing to remain in the same general area (and there’s no rule saying they would have to), then this sort of switching and reforming could go on all the time.

Now that’s D&D!

(There will be more. Oh yes, there will be more)