The Presence of Death

As a solution to the problem of getting back and forth across a large fjord in Norway, separating the party's base camp from the large market city of Stavanger, my party purchased a ship's boat: 3 tons cargo capacity, three oars and a rigged sail.  They obtained a pilot, Nadia, to direct the boat and maintain it, because none of the player characters have any skill in sailing.  In the example below, I'm going to cut out the extra dialogue relating who is present at any given time while we play. 

On the morning the party was ready to leave Stavanger, I described the weather thusly:

"... the morning of the 20th starts with a strong breeze and a moderate rainfall (5mm over a 3 hour period). This is enough to produce a steady downpour, something equal to this. Nadia is game to go nonetheless, though you're all going to get very wet, as the wind will blast the rain sideways. She feels she can get you across the bay in about five hours. I'd intended to describe the journey, but given the conditions, the players will have to decide their intentions first."

This is what I mean when I say it's the DM's responsibility to give a reasonable expectation of risk to the player characters.  I don't have a result in mind.  I know that Nadia CAN manage the weather, but I deliberately word this in a manner that the players cannot be sure ... i.e., she is "game to go."  That phrase, stemming from the adjective "game," meaning brave, daring, gutsy, definitely does not mean "can absolutely and unquestionably succeed," which is why I chose the word.  Even though I decided from the pilot's experience, dexterity, the nature of the storm and the seas where Nadia had managed a boat that YES, she was going to bring the boat safely through.

That did not mean she would bring the party safely through.  In my mind, the odds were high that all would work out.  I had plans to roll dice in this event; dice can always go badly.  The players, as it turned out, were also game:

Pandred: I'm okay with making the crossing.

Embla: Let's cross. I've taken care of wages on my end.

Vafrandir: I am as well. We make sure all the supplies are strapped down tight, we've enough rope. I've accounted for all food to this point.

Marcule was not heard from, this being online, but three persons is a quorum so the agreement is to go ahead.  That's where we ended the session yesterday.  Take note; the party doesn't have to leave today, or even this morning.  They could wait out the weather.  The decision to go is ALL on them, as I've clearly given an impression of what the weather is like, and I've offered no absolute promises.  What's more, they've only just engaged the pilot; the fact that the party agreed to trust the pilot tells me they're beginning to trust ME as a DM.  That's very important.

Today I wrote,

During the crossing, there is a small percentage, 2%, of something troublesome happening. There are six of you in the boat, and to save time, I will roll for each of you: Embla, Marcule, Nadia, Pandred, Vafrandir, Valda. Pandred, sorry to say, your number came up (I rolled 1 in 50 for each of you alphabetically). I will need Pandred to roll a d% as the fjord is crossed.

A 2% chance per player—and one third of those players being NPCs—are pretty good odds.  If the pilot, Nadia, had been the one getting the bad roll, there's really no chance of her suffering any part of what came next.  But Pandred is nearly a landlubber.

Why this matters, and why I'm highlighting this particular moment in this campaign, comes from how often I hear players on the internet bitching about how UNFAIR it is that a single roll of the die can unreasonably ruin the fun of a campaign.  I believe this carping is partly the substance of bad temperaments and a failure to recognize the characteristics of games, where any bad move can, without your expecting it, cause you to suffer a consequence.  If my knight is taken unexpectedly in a game of Chess, is the game "ruined"?  What if I bet and lose at Poker?  What if I fail to attack Irkutsk in RISK, and that turns out to be a fatal mistake?  Who are these people who don't realise that games always involve a chance of loss?  Did their parents keep them in bubble wrap before unleashing their snowflakeness on us?

Watch how it plays out.

Pandred wasn't immediately available to make her percentage roll, so I made it to keep the online game moving along.  This roll was applied to the maladies table shown; this is just a simple table that I occasionally use for any small, minor unfortune that arises.  I rolled a "64", producing a slip and fall for 1-4 damage.  Pandred took 4.  In itself, no big deal.  A hundred times the result could come up and it would never be a big deal.

However, in this storm, in this wind, on this small boat, with the players baling, and Pandred not having any boat skill, there had to be a check to see if Pandred would fall overboard.  For this, I always use a "dexterity check"—the player rolls their dexterity or less to compensate for the slip.  Pandred's dexterity is 14, so she had a 70% chance of success.  Now, let's view that chance a moment.  I am playing online with these players ... because of this circumstance, they have every opportunity to fudge that I have.  Pandred could have easily written that she rolled a 12 and there, no problem, she remains in the boat.  But Pandred answered back that she had rolled a 20.

We need to reflect on that.  A 20 puts Pandred in the water of a bad storm; Pandred can't swim.  No one in the party can, except the pilot.  And it wouldn't matter anyway, because if the pilot had jumped in after Pandred, they'd have both drowned.  You can't swim back to an unpiloted boat in three foot waves, because you will NEVER catch the boat.  Pandred is a 4th level fighter; just turned 4th level, after about three years of our playing online (things move slow when you play this way).  YET, she was willing to take the die as it was rolled, because that's how things should be.  As a DM, you should get on your knees and kiss the ground begging for a player like this.

This is the kind of player you get when you take a stand on things.  Not because you make this kind of player, but because you get rid of every other kind; and players like Pandred flock to your door because they're sick of playing with DMs who don't recognize the respect these players have for the game.  When I tell you to boot jerks and assholes, I am telling you to remove the chaff from the grain.  You can't eat the chaff, you don't want the chaff.  You want brilliant, glistening kernals like Pandred here.

But, I am not a monster.  I don't like single life-and-death rolls; I like there to be at least one back-up.  So, I wrote,

The DM: Okay, this is getting dire. Vafrandir, you're nearest Pandred; I will need you to start with an intelligence check, to see if you're too dullwitted by the storm to be paying attention to Pandred's slip. d20, please.

Vafrandir: roll 5, my Int is 12.

Vafrandir is every bit the player Pandred is, so when he says he rolled a 5, I believe him.  I don't have to see the die.  But note here that I'm not just giving Vafrandir one roll to save Pandred.  I having him make a roll just to see if he can save Pandred.  This has two game functions: it builds tension, because I'm not telling Vafrandir ahead of time how this is going to work.  People who have played with me a long time have seen this pattern before—it matters, however, that I'm not saying "Okay, roll to see if you notice so you can roll to see if you catch her."  That's a stupid downplaying of the effect here.  We want to feel the emotion, the fear, of Pandred slipping, and Vafrandir realizing she's going to fall overboard—"OH SHIT, PANDRED!"  I don't need to play that part out, because all the players are doing that without me, in their own heads.  I don't need to "purple this up."  I just need to move methodically through the process.  Telling Vafrandir he's closest.  Telling Vafrandir to check his intelligence (basically, a "perception" check).  This is a hard storm.  Vafrandir, the only person close enough to catch Pandred, could easily be tired, cold, languishing in the bottom of the boat; failing the check, he would hear a cry, lift his head and see that Pandred wasn't there—without even knowing why.  This could have happened that way.  And knowing it could have happened that way gets Vafrandir's heart racing as he reaches for his die to make the intelligence check.  This is ALL STAGING.

Okay, so he sees Pandred start to go.  I write,

The DM: Okay. Temptation is to say, "You see Pandred start to fall, what do you do?" But I think we'll assume that you try to catch her.

In anyone else's game, Vafrandir might have the option to just let Pandred fall.  There's nothing to force him to act.  I don't know why, on this particular occasion, I felt the need to point this out; probably, because we're playing by post and I have time to think about this.  At the game table, I wouldn't say anything like this.  Yet it is convenient for this post, because we can make a point about player vs. player.

If the players need to trust me, they need to trust each other.  They need to be there for each other.  This vastly reduces the number of "silly deaths" that occur entirely at random during a game.  It lets me as a DM count on the other players to be there, to let me let them have extra, logical rolls that can counteract one bad result.  It lets me run a better game.

I told Vafrandir to roll, to see if he was able to catch Pandred.  He did, and I wrote,

The DM: You catch her, and a heart-pounding moment is finished. Chances are, you wouldn't have had time to think about hollering; the dexterity check is a reflex check, to see if you would habitually just reach out and steady her; there wouldn't have been planning in it. But don't forget to keep reminding Pandred that you saved her life. You're a hero.

Vafrandir: Everyone here has saved my life many times! I am honored to return the favor. My heart was honestly in my mouth.

Marcule: Deep exhale.

Pandred: Alright, so next adventure is to slay Poseidon himself. Guy tried to ambush me, you all saw it.

Classic after reaction.  Cheers, release of tension, joke, everyone shakes out the panic and the campaign gets underway again.  Don't tell me these moments aren't intrinsic to the game, because they really are.  But it depends on how they're run.  It depends on the way we respect the player's perspective.  It depends on setting up the moment, so it's not entirely unexpected; this was a dangerous storm.  There was always a chance something bad would happen!  Sometimes, the die tries to take you out.

If not for moments like this, the game would be as dull as dishwater.  They can occur while on a simple crossing of an ocean, or they can happen in the middle of a combat when everything is going well.  Suddenly, the dice turn on you; and sometimes your friends can save you and sometimes they can't.  But if we play it so that you NEVER suffer real consequences, then none of these die rolls matter ... and you can't possibly achieve the kind of sharp alarm that enlivened everyone's afternoon today on the campaign.

And, I might point out, even you, dear reader, wondered whether I was going to say that Pandred died.  That is the power that the presence of death has over the game.  A presence you must give it, if ever you intend to be a good DM.

Messing Up

Sometimes, as DMs we get things confused.  And as we confuse them ourselves, we transfer that confusion in messages to the party, which only confuses things further.  It has happened to everyone, and more often than we like.  It's simply a part of playing a complex game.

In writing out a part of the early Senex campaign [The Meyer Homestead], I have stumbled across just such a moment.  I'm going to try to describe why I lost the thread of what was happening, and how that was made worse by my failure as a DM to contain a player who was behaving erratically.

The scene takes place near a farmhouse, and begins with an oh-so-common problem.  The party is deciding who is going forward to see the farmhouse, and who is staying behind.  That is where the confusion begins ... with the post ahead of the one linked above [The Journey West].

It's the usual thing.  Players stating their intentions, and then changing their minds, without acknowledging the change and in general, using language which is not absolutely definite.  In this case, we have five characters: Anshelm, Delfig, Josef, Kazimir and Tiberius.  And so begins a dance that many a DM has had to face in many a game ~ and sometimes to the point where we are screaming at players to make up their minds.

We'll start with Tiberius.  During the exchange on The Journey West, Tiberius is non-existent.  Not a single comment.  Though this is a bigger problem in an online campaign, it certainly comes up at a game table often, as players don't show up for a particular session or show up an hour late, or a similar scenario.  It is expected for the other players to carry on, and for the late or absent player to fit into the game when he or she gets back.

That's what happened here.  The other four players set out to decide for themselves.

Next, Kazimir.  Here is a different problem.  Throughout the campaign, Kazimir's involvement was never peak.  His commitment to checking the campaign and posting his own participation was exceptionally lax.  He rarely commented at all, and when he did, the contribution could be easily dismissed.  His entire involvement in this decision amounted to only this:  "Kazimir is present.  His sling is ready with a stone in it. Ready to proceed."

As a DM, I should have demanded he make this more clear, since it absolutely does not say whether or not he decides to stay behind and protect the gear, or go ahead and approach the farmhouse (they're supposed to be goons, pushing the resident off the land).  But ... I had already given up on Kazimir.  In a month of posts, I'd seen about five comments, all like the above.  I frankly didn't care if he came or not.  I let it slide, and got myself into trouble.

At varying times in the flurry of comments that followed, I made up my mind at one point that he had gone ahead with the others; and at another point, I'd decided he stayed behind.  I never got it straight in my head ... and because I hadn't been running a blog campaign very long, I didn't try to get it straight.  DM Error #1.

Then there was Josef.  Gawd, Josef.  In Josef I had a player who was ready to say anything, then disagree with it in the very next comment.  Or ask questions about matters that had been resolved (along with his taking part in resolving it), only to open the matter up again as it made people think it wasn't resolved.  Mixed in with this was a tendency for Josef to just blather on about things that made no sense.  All this has an effect on me as a DM.  I stop listening.  I wind up, for good or ill, trying to get everyone sorted, expecting that once that's done I can get a final answer from someone like Josef.

During The Journey West post, Josef made a host of suggestions, to move into the trees and observe the farmhouse, to knock on the front door, to burn the farmhouse down ... which was fine, except that nothing that he said was answering anyone else's statements.  Josef was merely tossing out random words, not taking part in solving the problem, only adding other suggestions that, in turn, no one answered.

Finally, it was established that he would stay behind.  But then, with a sudden intention to run the game, Josef declared,

"... delfig and anshelm stelth-up forward to scout while me, kazimir & tiberius stay behind ..."

Players who set out to run other players are a problem.  I should have stomped on him for doing it, right then, but I didn't.  Again, I hadn't been running online much and since my next line was to say that "Kazimir and Anshelm were going forward, possibly with Delfig," I felt I'd sorted the situation.  And though neither Delfig nor Anshelm had made a plan to approach stealthily, except as a suggestion, they HAD said they were going to scout, so it was an honest mistake.  No problem. 

At this point, as I started writing The Meyer Homestead post, I had it in my mind that Tiberius and Josef were hanging back, with the dogsbody Ells that showed the party how to get to this place, and the other three were going forward.

Why do I say 'stomp'?

If you don't contain the bad habits of your players right out of the gate, those bad habits will fester and infect your whole game.  There are a host of bad habits that every DM faces ... and in my experience, that most poor DMs allow to fester.  Players who won't make up their minds, who declare what other player characters do, who set themselves up as the final authority, who speak but who do not converse, and finally who do not understand that sometimes it isn't appropriate to speak at all.

The only proper way to manage this is to make it clear, out loud, that we know what the player is doing, describing it in detail if necessary ... and then stating that we want the player to stop it.  And then, every time the player does it, call it out.  Make the player admit it.  And then, if there's no sign of improvement, boot the player.

A lot of people in role-playing games think that is excessive.  But imagine that we are playing soccer (or football, if you prefer); and the player repeatedly touches the ball, however slightly, with his or her hands.  Repeatedly.  In spite of it being pointed out and in spite of it being made clear that it doesn't matter how little you touch the ball with your hands ... It. Is. Wrong.  And if the player won't transcend that habit?  Then fuck yes, you boot the player from the game.  That's how every other game playing group treats the rules, whether it's soccer or pool or backgammon.  Don't fuck with proper etiquette.  Play the game appropriately.

I should have stomped on Josef but I didn't.  DM Error #2.

We can move onto The Meyer Homestead post now.  I've linked it again for convenience.

I've made it quite clear in my descriptions that the players are in a forest.  And I say that the cart track rises over a small spur, a mere 30 foot climb. The players, as is seen in many comments afterwards, seemed to think that the top of the spur was just 30 feet from where Josef was waiting.  The 30 foot climb was meant to be its vertical distance ... and since carts and most walkers don't like super-steep roads, it should have been understood that the real walking distance was much further, far enough that when the party reached the top of the spur, or ridge, where they could see the farmhouse below, it would be way far away from Josef ... too far for any kind of discourse between Josef and the others.

Picking up the new post, let's start again with Tiberius.  The player behind Tiberius had a tendency to forget to change nicks before commenting on the game ... and was unfortunately named "Joseph."  Early on, this similarity got some confused, particularly Josef that I've been discussing ... and at the beginning of the Meyer post this is how Tiberius comes back into the game, saying, "Can Tiberius cast Armor [the spell] before going?"

Notice: NO reference to the previous post; NO query regarding if it is too late.  Just the immediate assumption he can do whatever, despite not being here around.  I'm guessing some readers have encountered this before, too.  And it, too, is a bad habit and it too needs to be stomped.  Good manners, right?  But here we are, it's on a blog post, manners take time to write out and I'm just trying to get everyone on board ... so I just overlook it and let him cast Armor.  But it's not good DMing.  DM Error #3.

Whereupon Delfig and Anshelm get about the business of playing, when Josef, way back in the woods, mutters in a comment, "(back at the ranch ... 'you know Hund - beets are and aphrodesiac.  I suppose you know enough about that..." [edited for punctuation]
Now, I definitely should have stomped on that shit.  It's attention-seeking, it's drivel, it's a vague reference to the dogsbody Ells (who has trouble speaking, so it's insulting as well), and worst of all, Josef has no other players around him.

My immediate answer should have been, "Josef, you're not here.  Please keep the channel clear while we resolve what's happening."  Instead, I said nothing.  I supposed it was going to be a one-off comment and that it could be ignored.  Nope.  That was not the case.

As Anshelm decides to go around to look at the back of the homestead, Josef continues: "(back at the ranch) must rut like a dog ... mizer ever buy a woman for you Ells?  Eh?"

Again, more drivel. It's a reference to Johann Mizer, the NPC the party is working for, but it is flagrantly abusive and in poor taste.  It is distracting from what's actually going on ... and I would have probably stomped on it, except, almost right after, one of the other players, Delfig, writes, "OOC - Josef, yer crackin' me up!"

To which Josef replies, putting two comments together, "creepy ... ha ha.  Kazimir?  You up doing recon?"

And this starts two ricochets in my head.  First, that I don't want to stomp on Josef if he's making the other players laugh, which is just a goddamn stupid thought for me to have in my head as a DM. At a real table, there's no way I would go there ... but as I'm dealing with total strangers, on the internet, whose faces I can't read and whose commitment I can't count on, not this early in the game ... I find myself swayed by this.  I let it go and the situation proceeds to worsen.  DM Error #4.

The other ricochet is that I start thinking, at this point, that Kazimir is THERE, with Josef.  I haven't seen Kazimir make a comment and he almost never does, so I forget that I've put him up with the others above the homestead and suddenly, in my head, he's where Josef can talk directly to him.  Which he can't.  But I'm concentrating on the details surrounding the homestead, and what Anshelm is doing, and how annoyed I'm getting with Josef ... and that last detail slips in my thoughts.  It will come back to bite me later.  DM Error #5.

Then Anshelm makes an error.  When he gives up on the reconnaissance through the forest, he says, "Anshelm works back to where Josef and company are standing."  And then he adds a statement in quotes, which doesn't make sense unless he says it to Delfig, so ...

Now Anshelm is in two places.  He's gone all the way back to Josef, in which case Josef would have no idea what the hell Anshelm is talking about, or he's gone back to Delfig and the inclusion of Josef in that statement was an oversight.  An oversight probably brought on by Josef talking directly about stuff to the party, which wasn't possible but which I let go on.  And that only gets worse, as the floodgates open and Josef and the players just start chatting away at each other, with Josef making suggestions about what to do about the homestead and the other players answering and/or debating his ideas.

And where was I?  Messing up.  Seriously gawddamn messing up.

Josef, after that, goes completely off the reservation.  He starts talking about using "L" [by which he means the dogsbody, Ells] by killing the dogsbody and dropping the body in Meyer's yard as a threat, since there's no horsehead handy.  Next, while debating ideas with Delfig, Josef is suggesting they pretend to be travelling performers, with Josef juggling sling bullets.  Then he's back to berating the dogsbody again, talking about having a leash and collar, making Ells play fetch, then making a vague reference to a guild patch that Ells wears, as his master Joseph Mizer, the party's employer here, is a merchant.

Throughout some of this, Ells has been trying to warn the party that there are huge bombadier beetles in the forest, but as he has a speech impediment, he can only express these as "beet."  Josef designates Ells as a "beet-lover", and then becomes progressively more and more confusing in the comments section.

Reading this years later, it is just fucking weird.  As I parse through the various comments, which it was clear was all being read as humorous at the time (and which I remember was merely annoying, as I was trying to follow what the party was doing), I feel like the player behind Josef had some kind of ... mental deficiency.  This has become more and more clear as I have been editing the content of the campaign, and noticing how often Josef's comments are non-sequential and often irrational.

In the midst of this madness, even though I don't make a comment for quite a long time, Anshelm remarks on his coming back to where he is reunited (with no specific person named), while Delfig also assumes that Anshelm has worked his way back, presumably to join Delfig ... and I admit that I missed his return and ~ finally ~ I tell Josef to cut out the dreck.

Josef ignores me, at which point he decides to cast command on the dogsbody and kill him with a mace.  And I ... fuck, I don't believe it ... I just go along with it.

No doubt, I was thinking, "Well, it's his problem.  He can explain it to Mizer later.  I don't care."  But in fact, I should have cared, not because it was wrong to kill the dogsbody, which I don't care about, but because the whole sequence was clearly staged for the sake of getting attention.  Josef did not give a damn about any of the other players and was having a great time spoiling.  As I said, I should have stomped him; but I didn't, even when he "went crazy."  DM Error #6.

Which, viewed as a series of statements made and actions taken, it looks like.  Josef appears on the post to be a sociopath.  It's demented.

Hopelessly confused, I post, "Let me recap, then: Anshelm, Tiberius and Kazimir are watching Josef dragging the dead body of Ells into the woods, on the rise overlooking the meadow and homestead.
Delfig has been asked if he will wait while Frau Meyer fetches her husband."

Which is utterly, utterly wrong.  With all the chatter back and forth between the party and Josef, at one point Anshelm shouts, "What are you doing!?" as Josef kills Ells.  Josef answers, "He is a werewolf." [D&D munchkin cliche]  So I think they're actually talking, so I put Anshelm with Josef.  And Tiberius, because he hasn't said much since deciding at the top of the post to go along, and Kazimir, because he never says anything ... and the thread of the whole damn post is gone because I did not kick the ever-living shit out of Josef at the start.

DM Error #7, forgetting where everyone is.

Looking over the material, I see I didn't sort it out even with the next post, as there's a long discussion as people at a long distance from each other discuss how to explain the murder.  Strange.  In the back of my mind I always had a feeling that something had gone terribly wrong with the visit to the Meyer Homestead.  Now, looking at it in detail, trying to edit it, I see what that was.

All this post was written to explain, in my official rewrite of the events, what the hell went wrong.  It is my intention to clean up the campaign, and to link this post to it as a footnote.  I intend to get everyone in their right places, to eliminate illogical conversations and discussions, to return Anshelm to Delfig and keep Kazimir and Tiberius there as well, and to depict Josef as a raving, murderous lunatic.  I intend the edited version to make sense.

Some people, I know, will see that as "not the true face" of D&D.  I have another version.  In my version of "truth," Anshelm and Delfig were trying very hard to play well, at a game that mattered to them, in a manner that showed their commitment.  And three other players showed either a total lack of commitment or a maliciously selfish agenda that attempted to piss on everything that was happening.

I know which players' content I wish to preserve, and which I prefer to bury in a lime-soaked latrine out back.

There is little difference between this and a post on my Masterclass blog, except this one is for free.  I don't care that I've made errors as a DM, as long as I learn from them, and as long as they can be a sign for others to see, and thus avoid pitfalls.

And while some will think that it is "posterity" to save every tick and letter of the original campaign, I do not.  I will rework the campaign text for me, and for what I see as important.  I am not a bean-counter.  I am a star gazer.

Investigating the Stairs

The following sequence arose from events associated with the Campaign Juvenis, played in succession from January 26 to February 2, 2018.

To set the scene.  The players are moving through an underground lair in the control of what, by the old Monster Manual, would be called killer frogs.  The players know them as "froglings."  They're a little stronger than the original, with 2 hit dice, and have proved troublesome in the past.  Stumbling across a small kitchen, the players find it full of slaughtered froglings, apparently torn limb from limb.  There's no explanation for what killed them.  The only way out of the kitchen, apart from the way in, is a flight of stairs down, behind a large lattice-iron door, the metal of which has degraded over many centuries.  However, recently, the door has been broken, so that it is clear it was forced open.

After digging out some of the booty from the kitchen, the party begins to get interested in the stairway.  It is a 55-degree slope of crumbled steps; this sounds very steep but it isn't for the time period.  After Engelhart, the cleric, makes an observation, I describe the stairs.

Engelhart: I have no special agility sage ability, I'm really just a clod with a crucifix. How hard would it be for me to descend, safely and silently?

DM: It is as difficult as a normal staircase, but the stones are out of place or ground away. There are signs of water damage. You can make your way down, but it would be a hell of a place to fight a combat (multiple rolls for slipping).

Why should I take the time to describe what the stairs would be in combat?  There isn't a combat, right?  Am I not deliberately jerking the players' chain, making them think twice about descending?

Yes, of course I am.  I don't have the benefit of making them feel the stairs, or seeing them, in near darkness, with the broken stones.  I have to put it into a context that players will appreciate.  The stairs are fine as long as nothing bad happens.  That's all I'm saying.

Now, note the final word from the cleric: "silently."  Players are obsessed with silence.  After years of dealing with different incarnations of rules surrounding the idea of creeping up on an enemy, I finally hit upon the idea behind my present stealth rules.  They work pretty well, I have found ... and will usually favor a thief or an assassin eager to surprise an enemy.  However, they are devilishly hard for players to grasp, for some reason ~ I think because they are also hard to bend to a player's will.

Basically, the principle is this: you want to approach an enemy.  If you're a long, long way from that enemy, you're certain not to be noticed.  On the line graph between a long, long way, and close enough to the enemy to put a sword between your enemy's ribs, you're going to be noticed.  You don't know where that threshold will be.  You're not meant to know.  So you move up to a certain distance ... and you find you're not noticed.  After that, every step forward that you take is a risk.  There's nothing else for it.  You have to either move that step forward, or retreat.

Since creating this system, where once I found players willing to bet their success on a surprise roll or an initiative roll, I now find players somewhat lacking in fortitude.  If they can't be absolutely sure they'll be close enough to the enemy before they're discovered, they're very hesitant.  Observe:

Pandred (the fighter): Alright, stairs it is.  I'm willing to go on, but I've got no stealth, and I am not personally prepared to risk a lighter armored run.  I know you mentioned using Sanctuary earlier Engelhart, and unless Embla or Lothar want to join your fearless foray I think it'd be a worthwhile idea.

Engelhart: I ask for a lantern and shed away all weight other than hammer & shield. This still leaves me at 4 AP as the armour is just too damn heavy and not taking it doesn't look like a good tradeoff. Here’s the thing, I obviously don't want us to get into trouble, just to get a finer sense of where we're heading and some intel of how safe it might be to overnight in the storeroom, seeing as it is still rather near to the potential focus of danger.

For all we may know, the beast may have been put down already, rather than left to rampage across the frogling compound. If all I find is closed doors, we can feel somewhat safer. Beside faith in the Lord, I'm gathering that such a brute must make more noise than I ever would. (If the party will give me missile cover from up above, I might be able to duck on their command?)

Initially, the cleric meant to remove his extra weight and not his armor; and that's fine.  He knows what the stealth rules give as a penalty, so he's making his choices.  Afterward, he reads the stealth rules I linked for him (as I have linked for the reader) and changes his mind:

Engelhart: It seems that should I lose the armour and shed all weapons there's virtually no chance of being discovered as long as I take measured steps and keep it cool down there. Since the plan wasn't to triumph through arms anyway, I'll go ahead and strip down to hauberk and chausses. Once AC ceases being a concern, might as well leave both shield and hammer behind, as well.

That's what I want from a game system.  The risks can be managed IF the player is prepared to sacrifice some of his benefits in order to receive other benefits.  That is how game play should function.  Everything is a strategy.

At the moment, the cleric can't see how far the stairs go; no light source had been produced ... so this becomes the subject of discussion for a bit.  I had not added "candlelight" to my stealth rules, so I did so, inserting it between dim moonlight and starshine, as far as giving away an individual.  If that seems kind, remember that a candle can be hidden by one hand, or gutted so that it reveals very little flame.  Anyway, I explain the rule change to the player and we move forward.

continued elsewhere...

This is the first of two such posts I will be writing in the month of March for the Tao's Master Class blog, where the rest of this post can be found.  Examples on the Tao of D&D blog can be found here and here.

To see the rest of this post, you must pledge at least $3 to my Patreon account.  This will enable you to see all material to date on the Master Class, or you can use the sidebar to dedicate $3 to me right now. The latter will permit you to see the content as soon as I confirm the donation, rather than having to wait until the 1st of April, when Patreon will process your donation.

Robur's House

The following sequence arose from events associated with the Campaign Senex, played April 19, 2010.

The sequence relates to a number of events surrounding a mystery the party has only just understood ~ that being, that there doppelgangers slowly taking over a town in Germany, replacing town officials one by one.  The clues for this have led them to a name: Robur ... and then to the discovery of Robur's house.

At first they don't even see the house, which is part of the plan.  My goal with deconstructing this incident is to discuss revealing a scene, in order to freak the players out a little.  Remember that this has to be done without any pictures whatsoever, just as if I were describing this at a gaming table.

Note that out-of-campaign comments being made by the players will be shown in brackets: [*] and not in italics.  To focus on the main purpose of this post, I will be editing bits and pieces from the original post-and-comment stream.

DM: ... it is just two miles from the Ingolstadt-Nuremberg road that the party stumbles across a disturbing scene.

The first sight is not wholly informative; where the road takes a dip and turns to the left, about twenty yards beyond - below a stout apple tree, and partly concealed by it - the party can see the torn body of a horse. It appears to be quite dead. Just beyond, there is a body hung over a fence stile, on its side and facing away from the party. The body is covered with blood, but there is something familiar about it.

Now, it should be understood that all is relative silence. There are a few birds, and a gentle wind, but no indication at all that anything has happened, except for this awful sight.

This is all film-making 101.   The party can see the initial unpleasantness at a distance.  To press home the point, we emphasize two things: first, that the bodies are in a very unnatural way, even for something that is dead.  "Hung over a fence stile" implies that something really energetic happened, even if the players do not consciously make this connection.

Second, we emphasize what the players can feel.  Any time that we give a description of anything, we always want to list off the five senses.  The first three can be told at a distance: what does a scene look like, what does it sound like, what does it smell like?  We can cheat with touch and taste by describing the way a character suddenly feels ~ a shiver, a sense of their palms sweating, that they are conscious of freezing in place, that sort of thing.  With taste, we can describe the metal taste in the character's mouth (fear, adrenaline) or a sudden dryness.

But we want to pick and choose!  We don't want to load up too much imagery, as that only shows the player we are trying too hard.  Here, I went with the sight and the sound of the birds and wind.  It doesn't have to include more ... but we could have gone with other options (and we will, when we need to do a different scene some other time).

Note, too, that the "sound" here isn't weird at all.  This is what any scene would sound like ... yet mixing it in with the appearance of the horse and body makes this quiet feel disturbing.  But, in fact, only because I take the time to state it.  When we highlight the weird with the normal, the end result is always sort of creepy.

And, of course the small mystery of the "familiarity" is an extra little hook I've added.

Delfig: I'm loading and half-cocking my crossbow.  "Let us send one person out to look at the person.  Andrej?  Avel, you and I should stay on the carriage and be watchful."

Andre: "Hmmm.  Watchful.  Yes."  Andrej will cross himself and draw one of his maces with his off-hand, keeping his primary hand close to the other, stuck into his belt.  He'll cautiously approach the body sung over the fence, once Avel and Delfig seem ready."

Mmphf.  I just love how players go straight into cop-mode when they see this sort of thing.  They're not wrong to do so.  There really is the chance that something might be still happening.  In fact, in keeping with my agenda to let the reader know what I know as I'm reacting to the players, there is no threat here at all.  The whole point, however, is to make it look threatening, so as to entice the players into the scene and get their blood racing. We don't want, at any time, to give them the least sense that they are safe (even though they are) ~ and so, with our words, and our voice, we want to take it every bit as seriously as the players do.  We CAN'T laugh or make a face when we see them react.

DM: The quiet is very disturbing, although it isn't complete. Upon moving down the slope of the road, Andrej can see a second horse, standing near the decimated remains of a small brick-and-timber house. The horse is alive, but its flanks are soaked in blood. A leg, detached from a body, hangs in the horse's stirrup.

The house has a facing of perhaps twenty-five feet, with a door in the center and two windows. The door has been ripped off its hinges, the bricks on either side of the door have been - to some degree - torn out. One window is broken, and an arm hangs through it, and a stain of blood shows on the wall beneath.

The odor, the color of the blood ... Andrej understands at once that whatever happened, it was within the last hour. He moves forward, and looks at the other side of the body hanging over the stile.

It is wearing the livery of a soldier of the Palatinate of Upper Bavaria.

Okay, so I've satisfied the first mystery.  The body looks familiar because of the livery ~ and because the players were aware there were ...



The continuation of this post, all 5,500 words of it, can be found on the Tao's Master Class blog, along with the other two deconstructive posts I have written, which can be read on the Tao of D&D blog here and here.

Unfortunately, the Master Class blog is available only to those who have pledged and successfully given a $3 donation on my Patreon account in the month of February.  Truth is, these posts are draining and exhaustive to write; they are as long as two university term papers, each; and they use every ounce and vestige of my long-acquired experience in running as a DM.  My feeling is that not only does material of this kind not exist anywhere else on the internet, it can't exist anywhere else ... because in ten years of writing this blog, I haven't met or seen anyone capable of deconstructing their own thoughts and motivations to the extent that I am able to, nor are there any continuous online blogs existing anywhere with eight years of available material that can be deconstructed.

So, yes, I am sorry, but I'm going to put this material behind a wall.  $3 is very, very little to ask, for two such posts per month (I will put up another on the 28th of February).

You can, if you wish, pledge $3 to Patreon and see all material to date when March comes, or you can use the sidebar to dedicate $3 to me right now, which will bring you on board with all those who have already supported me in February.

Guys, I don't know what to tell you.  This sucks.  Please, however, overlook my miserly approach to monetizing my expertise and read the rest of this post.

Another Deconstruction of a Game Running, Role-Playing This Time

How not to DM

As I did last time, I will start with the description at the top of the scene.  This Passage is from the game I was running online in 2013.  The party was aboard the Petrel, a ship under the authority of Captain Ramona Salvador, whom the players had already discovered was a no-nonsense, somewhat criminally minded woman, and definitely a pirate, who yet owed the party a debt and therefore ~ it was rightly believed as it turned out ~ could be trusted.

As the ship moved along the Dalmatian Coast on the Adriatic Sea, they ran into a storm:

The captain's mood in improved somewhat as the wind improves from the early afternoon through Friday evening, with a gentle wind that blows the ship down along the coast of Cres Isle and into the open Adriatic. This wind dies during the evening, until the ship is merely edging outwards upon the current ... but with the morning comes the worst.

A terrifying blizzard strikes the ship an hour before dawn, bringing with it frosty temperatures that immediately freezes all the guidelines and the deck, making even walking a dangerous activity. There's little time to string the necessary safety measures, and the party is rallied - at sword point if necessary - to help in battening and managing the ship. Ahmet's chicken cages are tossed about - but manage not to break - and the whole ship is put into a wild flight as the captain fights to keep her ship from flying into the Adriatic. Steadily, almost miraculously, she drives her crew to maintain the desired course.

At one point, Ahmet finds himself commissioned to hammer the knots in ropes to break them apart. Burnt by the screaming winds, soaked to the skin, he endures as one of boatswain vilifies him for not swinging hard or fast enough ... whereupon Madam appears, shouts an order at the boatswain that he fails to understand, and she strikes him so hard that it lays him on the deck. Ahmet cannot understand what either of them are saying, but the officer leaps to his feet, appears contrite, and flies at once towards the bow.

Step by step, throughout the day, the storm diminishes, while the ship makes good time; the coastline reappears (its been there all along, but couldn't be seen) and the crew describes it as Dugi Otok. They've come through fine, wasted no knots and the ship has come through with little damage.

By evening, though the rain continues, at the point marked by the yellow star, the wind has died again, as it shifts to the northwest ... whereupon a strong breeze sends you quickly along. Dugi Otok falls out of sight and the sea steadies into clear - if unpleasantly wet - sailing.

And, as before, comments not indented indicate my commentary on the game.

There are a few things that I meant to establish with the above description, first and foremost the discipline on board the ship.  The storm was randomly rolled, according to the system I was using at that time; but in the light of the storm, I used it to create a sequence of events to send the message to the party what shipboard life was like.  Ahmet, for example, is a "passenger," but on board a ship in a storm, passengers work.  At one point, the boatswain, or bo'sun, is struck by the Captain and accepts it dutifully.

My second goal, given the storm, was to emphasize the Captain's skill at managing a crisis.  I wrote the scene to be as much a depiction of danger as I could.  I was going for scary, discomfort, the possibility of death, or the ship breaking up ... which I hoped the players might worry about as they read through it.

I never knew, as when the description ended, no one said a word about their emotional reaction.  I wish I could say I've gotten used to this.  It's better at a game table; I can see the faces of the players as I push the routine.  On the other hand, if this had been a live game, I wouldn't have a record of it, and we wouldn't be deconstructing it now.

There are four players running: Lukas, a mage; Maximillian, a druid; Andrej, a cleric; and Ahmet, a fighter.  They discuss several things after the storm ends, but I want to focus on what Maximillian does, from his first comment on the post. Mareo, who gets a mention, is a hireling, and of no importance here:

Maximillian: During the storm I willingly assisted wherever needed, probably with the horses, and made certain Mareo did as well. Now, in the calm of the evening, I'll share my ale with whoever is not already asleep or on duty (I think I have about 30 pints, can't remember exactly), before crawling off to bed myself.

As a DM, I'm always watching for moments of action or behaviour that I can build an adventure around, or even an important scene.  Max gave me one here.  I seized on it immediately.

Now, my DM's instincts tell me to play this close to the chest, just as I did with the party, revealing what it is about the passage without overt explanation ... but since we're trying to deconstruct DMing, I'll walk through my thought process as it came to me.

Grog, or any form of spirits, is a BIG problem aboard ship.  Much of shipboard life is pretty slow and repetitive; but it is also very dangerous.  A bad step and a sailor can slip over the side so silently, particularly at night, that they won't be noticed until long after they're missing.  The heavy ropes that are used can grab at a body part, snatching it and crushing a limb, snapping a hand off at the wrist; or loose rope can get free and whip out fast enough to kill a man.  So in spite of the boredom, the crew must be diligent, constantly diligent, to avoid error.  Grog can be both a compelling Mistress against the boredom and a dangerous companion when one is supposed to focus on one's job.

No one knows this better than the Captain, who understands what the state of the crew must be for every inch of the journey.  There is a time to drink and a time to be sober, and it is the Captain that decides.  Still, given an opportunity, a crew will drink, if they get the chance, because they don't believe in the danger; a crew member very often will imbibe, no matter how rigorous the ship's order or how hard are its punishments.

Of course, Maximillian isn't thinking about any of this.  He's grateful they got through the storm, he wants to reward the crew, he knows grog is just the thing for it ... and he happened to have grog with him.  In other words, he's thinking like a passenger.

DM: Maximillian, Several of the men take advantage of your offer of ale, pleased as punch for the opportunity to sip a sud or two.

So, as I've explained before, I see a movie instantly forming in my head.  How will the Captain learn about this?  What will be the Captain's reaction?  Surely, it won't take long for the source of the drink to become known; a crewman will admit it.  Probably, a drunk crewman.  Hm.  Suppose we have a crewman who is made drunk somewhat easily?  Someone with a medical condition, who is great fun and a buffoon in port, but whom everyone knows to keep away from the grog when at sea.  Everyone, obviously, except a random passenger.

Now, I said the Captain was somewhat criminal.  And this is a pirate ship, and the party knows it's a pirate ship.  So what would a Pirate Captain do?

I saw it playing out the way a gangster would handle it:

DM: After going to sleep, however, you find yourself roughly seized in your sleep by two large men. You have no idea what their intention is.

I know that the shorter I make the description, the more worrisome the situation will be for Max.  He does know he's on a pirate ship ~ and that he's the only one in the party without a personal history between himself and the Captain.  The Captain's debt is owed to Maximillian's companions, so he is naturally a little bit more leary than the others.  Too, Max is a lower level than the fighter, mage and cleric.  And like the movie in my head suggested, he immediately assumed this was a random attempt to kill him by two strangers.  At no time, as I expected, did he connect this event with what I had said in the sentence immediately before explaining that he was jumped below decks.

Interesting, isn't it?  If you look at the original campaign post, you'll see I wrote the two quotes above in one comment:

And even though Max had time to see the words written on the page, he still didn't make the connection.  As a DM, you've got to trust in this.  You don't have to engage in elaborate cover ups to deflect from your intentions.  In fact, the less elaborate the cover-up, the less additional stuff you put in to separate the two ideas, the less likely the player will be to catch on.  If you misdirect too much, this will create suspicions: "Why is the DM trying so hard?"  Players will catch on, because they're human and they're instinctive about anything that looks out of order.

'Course, it doesn't hurt that I called myself "dumb" in the same post.  Wasn't intentional; but that probably did help sell the notion that I was guileless here in presenting the description.  I wasn't, however.  I had many dark evil plans in my head.

So, Max responded as expected:

Maximillian: I'll let out a yell like a startled donkey, and struggle as best I can. If the men are on either side of me, I will do my best to get to one side or the other, trying to move directly towards the man on that side. If they are both on one side, I will pull away from them.

DM: Roll a d20.

Maximillian: d20: 13.

DM: You manage to clip one of the individual's on the jaw (roll a d4 minus 3 plus strength bonus to damage to determine damage done). They are neither of them stunned, even if you roll maximum (though it's potential experience).

Maximillian also manages to squirm out of the way, so that the one with fists as big as the druid's head misses a punch and slams his hand into one of the solid posts by your hammock. The other, however, jabs his fist hard into Maximillian's ribs, causing three damage. Roll the d4-3 for damage and then let me know your next action.

My goal here is to play it straight, let Max think what he wants to think.  He has no idea these two men were ordered by the Captain to come collect him, just as a gangster would send a couple of boys around to your house to pick you up, if you annoyed him.  There are some "big" clues I'm giving; these are absurdly big fellows, with big fists, who are too big to be threatened by a little pipsqueak like Max ... and they're not using weapons.  Moreover, they haven't tried to silence Max, either.

Max knows he's probably going to lose, but in true D&D fashion, he's not going down without a fight ...

Maximillian: Not stunned, hp: 17. My next action is still dependent on their positions, as I'm trying to get free of the hammock and put it between me and the one with the big fists. I'm fine with moving towards the other one if that's what it takes to do so.

DM: Reading that as trying to free yourself from grappling, Maximillian, please roll a d20.

Maximillian: d20: 18.

DM: Maximillian manages to squirm out of his hammock, drop to the floor and get to where his back is against the bulkhead.  He can see now the two men. They're both huge. You've seen them before over the past few days - they seem to spend a lot of time near the Captain.

"Slippery fellow, isn't he?" says one, rubbing his sore hand.

"Yeah," says the other flatly. He draws out a belaying pin from his belt. "But the Captain said bring 'im, and she said bring 'im bruised. And I ain't convinced yet he's bruised enough."

They move around the bunk and Maximillian will need to roll initiative. A d6 please.

Now, I've got to say, Max is doing a pretty good job here.  I described the scene at the start as two guys grabbing him; he's managed to free himself from one with a poke on the jaw and above he rolls well and gets free from the other one.  He's using the scene around him to preserve himself; there's a good sense of space and investment in his character and situation.  So the scene has been fun.

As such, I felt it was a good time to tip my hand.  I have the two guys banter light-heartedly; they're clearly not angry.  And one says outright that the Captain sent them.  But as I'm DMing, I have to keep on two hats: the one where I am role-playing the two sailors, and one where I am handling the technical side of the game.  I ask Max for an initiative roll ... but at the same time, I fully expect he's going to realize, "Oh, this isn't what I thought it was; maybe I should find out what the Captain wants ..."

Max doesn't, though.  Instead he rolls initiative:

Maximillian: d6: 3.

Which leaves me no choice.  I've got to play my end as DM.  I know what the Captain wants, but these two guys have their orders.  I want to say, "Max buddy, just take a few bruises and give in."  Instead, I have to roll initiative.

DM:  The boys are going to roll a 4. They advance towards Maximillian, pins in hand - and a voice behind them says, "That's enough."

It's the boatswain, and he says, "Jacobo, he's bruised enough. Take him to the Captain and let's get on with this."

The men move to seize Maximillian.

Yes, then I realized there was a cheap trope I could use to get out of beating the druid into the deck.  Have a bigger authority show up and stop it. We've seen this in a thousand TV shows ~ but it works.

So there's some catching up with the rest of the party, I let them get involved a bit, Maximillian gives in and the party gives him a few concerning comments.  The fighter, Ahmet, has put it together I think, as he says,

Ahmet: "Your heathenish love of drink has caused this," Ahmet mutters at Maximillian.

But that's all he says.  And after a few more words, including that the player behind Maximillian announces his real life engagement, we pick up the scene again:

DM: Maximillian finds himself brought to the Captain's cabin - which is, after all, only twenty feet away - and the party in tow, the door not closed to hide what is going on. All will see the first and second mates, along with the ship's steward, standing side by side - not looking at all comfortable. There's a man who's back is turned to the party, standing in the center of the cabin, and the Captain appears to be have been interrupted while redressing him.

She looks at Maximillian and says to her men, "Bring him here!" in a very forthright manner.

Maximillian is pushed forward, to stand beside the other man.

"Do you know this man?" The captain asks Maximillian, pointing at the other.

Maximillian does. He was one of the men eager to have some of Maximillian's ale, earlier. At the moment, the man looks a bit drunk ... however, none took more than a few swallows of Maximillian's ale.

Maximillian: "Good ... evening, Madam Captain. I have made his acquaintance as a member of your crew."

Lukas: Lukas cringes slightly at Maximillian's flippant greeting and response.

Lukas is quite right in his observation.  At this point, I'm wondering myself if Maximillian has caught on.  But I have a whole dialogue set up in my head, and so far he's done nothing to derail it.  Of course, the opportunity is there; Max could say something clever, or reasonable, or intuitive ... but for that, he's going to have to think faster than he apparently is.

I'm doing my best as DM to give him clues.  The Captain is angry but polite.  She's forthright, not furious.  It's the crewman that pushes him forward; the Captain doesn't ask for this.  She has been dressing down a member of the crew.  It's not obvious, but the dressing down is for drinking.  The man is described as "a bit drunk."  If you look "a bit drunk" in the Captain's presence, you ARE drunk.  It seems probable that Max hasn't put this together, however.  That might be for a number of reasons:  the life experience of the player, a lack of personal experiences with military practice (even criminal military practice), which demands a certain structural hierarchy.

The man was eager to have some of Maximillian's ale.  Am I at fault because I didn't role-play this earlier?  Absolutely not.  What would you expect to have the crewmen be?  Not eager?  And I did say the men were "pleased as punch," which was Maximillian's intention.  There's no reason in the world that he, his character, would have singled out a single person as notably more eager than any other, unless I, as DM, made it obvious as hell by drawing attention to it.

This is a difficult tightrope to walk.  You can't put a neon sign on every part of the campaign without flatly ruining the mystery ~ and drawing excessive attention to anything as DM, the Immortal GOD of the universe (at least as far as being the only voice that describes it) is sure to kill it. As DM, you've got to say as little as possible, less than a little if necessary, to promote a sense that the world is a big, stressful place, full of uncertain conflict.  I needed to downplay the giving of the drink, so that I could up-play later why it was a very bad, bad thing to do.

That said, part of my plan was that no bad thing could happen to Max.  Yes, I was blind-siding him a bit, and yes the Captain was pissed, and yes it all looked very threatening ... but unless Max did something truly stupid, like grab a weapon of some kind and try to fight the Captain, he was safe.  At worst, he'd get a talking to, a little public shaming.  Practically the right of the Captain to do that: it is what every figure in power does, without hesitation.  Max, however, made it a little easier.  It became clear that he felt wronged, though technically he was responsible for doing something stupid (handing out grog) ... which took awhile to beat into him.

DM: "And did you give him strong drink?" demands the Captain.

Maximillian: "Madam, I provided for this sailor the same as I provided to the other off-duty sailors, what meager ale I had to share. I cannot take responsibility for his current state."

Andrej: "That is to say, I'm sure the small amount Maximillian gave was not enough to result in such a stupor."

I expect the cleric, Andrej, to jump in and defend his party member.  But it is clear that neither has grasped yet what a serious problem grog can be aboard a 17th century seagoing vessel.  Note that Maximillian does not even call Captain Salvador, "Captain."  He calls her, "Madam."  That's a strong sign that he just isn't getting it.

I could have had the Captain go at the cleric, or berate Maximillian for his error, but I've seen a lot of military movies, so I knew just how to handle this scene from a dramatic perspective.

DM: "Steward!" says the Captain. "Who here is responsible for allocating the rations allowed the sailors aboard this ship?"

The Steward: "I am, Captain!"

The Captain: "And who approves those rations?"

"You do, Captain!"

The Captain looks at Maximillian. "And are you aware that this man -" she points at the apparently inebriated sailor standing beside the druid; "- suffers from a condition where the slightest amount of alcohol renders him DRUNK?"

Lukas: Bites his lip stifling a comment.

Maximillian: "No, Captain."

DM: Still to Maximillian: "Did you clear it with the Steward before adding to this man's rations?"

Maximillian: "No Captain."

DM: "Did you clear it with ME?"

Maximillian: "No, Captain.  Did he?"

It's a great scene.  It would play out well in a film.  The Captain is beating the hell out of Maximillian ... and what can the player do, really?  She runs the ship, the room is full of pirates, the party depends on the ship to get to their destination and the fact is, SHE is in control here.  She must be obeyed.

But Max can plainly feel the pressure.  Playing this on the blog, a half hour passes between each of his answers.  And the last plainly has a back-talking statement in it ... which, frankly, I still don't understand.

What happened, however, was that the player behind Max jumped into a discussion about rules for arbitrating conflicts between player characters and NPCs ... which was clearly a compulsive derailment of the tension of the scene.  Even as we go over it now, the reader can feel the tension.  If you, as player, were on this particular carpet, you'd goddamn feel it.  If you have military experience, you probably HAVE been pulled up on a carpet like this.

Not all "role-play" is stupid, silly joking.  Actual hard-core role-play can be downright unpleasant, stressful ... and uniquely memorable.  Speaking for my own campaigns, I don't always get players who appreciate this approach: but I am a lover not just of humor, but of drama too.  Drama is where the rubber of my role-playing sessions, such as the one described here, meet the road.

So, after pulling Max back from his derailing discussion of rules, frankly telling him that he's stepping out of character because of the tension, I get back to it, picking up the Captain's words (I had her ignore his last statement, because it didn't make sense]:

DM: "If you want to take on the privileges of being Captain and bestowing on my crew whatever you like, you can experience the other part of it too. Bos'n - take seaman Praest to the bottom hold and chain him. He can have two dozen lashes in the morning. And have Mr. Boii sit with him overnight and make sure he's comfortable."

To the druid she'll say, "I'll make sure you get a good look in the morning. Now get out!"

Maximillian Boii [his full name] is more or less being let off the hook.  A night in the brig as a companion to a man, named Praest, whom Max has just helped consign to a tortuous whipping, could be an opportunity to role-play a lot of different things: contrition, a promise to preserve the victim, a decision to seek revenge against the Captain if the man dies, or perhaps to bring news to the man's family of his fate.  Most of all, just to make the man's hours before the whipping more cheerful and decent.

Instead, the response is this:

Maximillian: As we're being lead away, I express my displeasure to the sailor. "A fine way to repay a kindness, wretch."

That's very small of him.  And so I let Max have it right in the eye:

DM: The Bos'n, who's leading you down to the bottom of the ship, remarks, "This man's about to take a whipping for you, because you never took account of where you are and what it takes to manage a ship. You think we came through the last storm by luck and a prayer? The Captain's discipline brought us through it, and you saunter along the decks as though these men are your personal gamesmen to play with. They're HER men, you supercilious fool ... and when you watch this one die on the rack tomorrow, you might give a thought to what your thoughtless temptation has lost this ship!"

The Boatswain is not cheerful about what's about to happen.  In truth, the Captain probably isn't cheerful about it either.  She isn't doing it out of malice or anger; if she's angry at anything, it's that this situation is out of her control.  She has to punish the man, and she has to make it hurt, to send the message that when she gives an order, it means something.

I have to hand it to Maximillian, however.  He came right back with an excellent poem, and a message about the effectiveness of the sequence we've just examined.

Maximillian: 

"Bourne to Praest was ale

To wet his lips with thanks.

Wretched Praest grew pale

No thought for steadfast ranks.

Blind to fate he mustn't be

Knowing blows she bring'st he.

Bear his burdens now must we

When his temptations snared me."

I applaud you, Alexis. That sequence was exactly what should have happened. I've read enough sea-stories that I really should have seen it coming, but I was completely taken off guard, and that really built tension as I went through the stages of incomprehension to indignation to resignation. At first I thought this was a mugging, and I was going to be dumped overboard.

I don't put this forward as evidence of my DMness.  I want the reader to understand has this formula is accomplished.  You watch a lot of movies, read a lot of books, put together why characters are motivated to do this or that.  You see the world through the eyes of the various people: through the sailor who just wants a drink, through the two men sent to arrest a passenger by an angry Captain, through a boatswain who loves his Captain but sees where all this is going and hates it and through a Captain whose hands are tied ... and you pull these characters together to create a situation that doesn't actually harm the player character, but does provide insight, opportunity for growth, an experience of excitement and emotion, and overall a game that can be both predicted ["I should have seen it coming] and nearly completely impossible to understand ["I thought this was a mugging."]

Now go forth and be better DMs.

Deconstructing the DM's Brain

On JB's B/X Blackrazor Blog, John Higgins asks with regards to teaching DMs to DM, "What kind of pedagogical infrastructure would make you happy?"

Coincidentally, I had planned to try this.  The following source comes from my own gaming blog, Campaign Juvenis, which I've mentioned a few times this week.  For the purpose of this experiment, I will be removing personal information and extraneous detail from the content, though it is all visible through the link I've just given, if the reader would like to view it unexpurgated.

I have already described the scene once on this blog, but for the sake of the player's comments and play, I'll present the post as written, so that it can be fresh in the reader's mind as we examine the content thereafter.

[Let me just say that the players here have managed their characters with excellence and due consideration; this is not a post challenging their ability to play, but rather an investigation into what is the role of the DM and what is required of that role.  Starting this, I have some trepidation as to how long this is going to take to write ... I think this might be a very long post]

DM: You find yourself at one end of a bridge, sure enough. The chamber the bridge crosses is about 80 feet long and about 45 feet wide. The bottom is covered with water, far, far down, about 90 to 120 feet. Once in the chamber, hanging your head over the side, you can hear the water moving, but not rushing.

The ceiling is only ten feet above you - and the stone seems to be cracked, along the length of the bridge. The crack is only a few millimeters to half a centimeter wide, or less than a quarter of an inch; this doesn't let in much light, but it does let in enough to fill the chamber. You can see a shaft of light in the far left corner of the room, from your perspective (sorry, forgot to add this to the map, I'll update it next time), from a hole about three feet wide, in hex 1403.

There are no rails along the bridge and it is only a meter wide, plus, or 3 to 4 feet. The height is dizzying. It isn't a matter of dancing across this thing.

You can hear a faint chittering sound, like a small, rattling mill wheel (that's as close as you can get to a description). It might be coming from anywhere.

You can't tell what it looks like under the bridge; if it is natural or made, as you can't really get into a position to look over the side and under, without risking death.

Pandred: Anyone got a rope? Perhaps we ca have one of the lighter, or at least more observant members of our esteemed company try and cross, and we'll hold onto them with the aforesaid. Pandred herself is sitting at 5 hp, and Oddsdrakken is at 1.  I'm going to politely rescind my earlier offer to have him try the rope maneuver.  I do, however, think it's still a good idea.  If Fjall would like to offer some potential covering fire with my crossbow, Embla and I surely have the strength between us to hold onto whomever is brave enough to give this thing a closer look. 1403 is a bit far, but we might be able to get a decent vantage on it.  Volunteers or another idea?

Okay, this is me.  A couple of things about the above.  We haven't played in six months, and at this point both Pandred and I have forgotten that Oddsdrakken, her hireling, is actually on his way to town and not present.  This is not a big deal.  DMs and players forget this sort of thing all the time; there are a lot of details to manage, right?  Anyway, we do get this sorted later.

Note the manner in which Pandred speaks to her party.  Polite, patient, asking questions and not making demands.  She describes what she can do, in the context of other player abilities, proposing cooperation.  She does not leap in and start telling other players what to do or co-opting their characters without an agreement.  This is what we want to see as a DM; we don't want to see players running other players' characters.  If that happens, we have to step in and explain why that can't be allowed to happen.

Engelhart: Place is full to the brim with bats. If we disturb them they'll whip up a frenzy of leatherwing and endanger us. Best that we kill the lights, adjust our sight and send for the darkvision (and sure-footed, to boot) half-orcess. Bridge is too long for anything less than 100' of rope to serve as safety line, and I believe we left it on the cage the other side of this complex. Not sure if there's any such length between us anymore (none on me).

I don't mean to stop after every line, but if there's something pertinent that can be used to teach a little DMing, I'll take advantage of it.  Engelhart presumes there are bats.  There aren't, but as a DM I have nothing to gain in telling him so!  In fact, I want to be very careful not to say something that will give away this incorrect assumption; the party will learn the truth soon enough.  My goal is to let them draw conclusions unimpeded.

Now, also, Engelhart means "infravision" here and not "darkvision."  This is jetsam from playing a lot of different games, which tend to confuse one another.  There's no need to correct him on his language, particularly in text.  Eventually, after I keep using infravision as the term, Engelhart will get used to it and adapt his descriptions.  I don't need to nag him about it.

He's quite right about the length of rope necessary.  And it is SO much better for the characters to realize that on their own, without my having to jump in and say "no" right off.  It's best in these moments of planning that I just shut up and let them sort out what they want to do.  I can always nix impossible plans later on ... while a good party will usually come up with three or four solutions in the meantime.  It's okay to say "No," as a DM, whatever you've heard ~ but you don't want to say it too quickly.

Embla: I have no rope, alas. I am happy to walk along the bridge, but if we want to look at the hole, I think we'd want someone a little lighter (I may be sure-footed, but I'm a big girl).

Engelhart: The hole is out of reach, whatever we may make of it. Embla, if you're happy to go so much the better, because whoever goes had best go at it alone, since if you encounter trouble you may need to double back in a hurry, and that's where your sure-footedness would come into its own. Plus you're stealthy, too. You can guide the rest of us visually-impaired humans across once everything proves to be on the level. I don't think I currently have a lantern on me, but again, I urge you to douse the lights until we're across.

DM: If there are bats, they won't see a light.

So why did I feel the need to throw that in?  Basically, I'm playing into Engelhart's own projections.  He has mentioned bats as the probable danger; his statement about dousing the lights can't be for the benefit of Embla's infravision, there is natural light in the cavern that would spoil infravision anyway.  I assumed, therefore, it was meant to help conceal Embla against any enemies (bats?).

In a way, my comment is meant to be the sort of thought bubble that appears in one's head, reminding one of information that they may have forgotten or might need highlighting.  Often, the player doesn't need it; but with more than one player, listening as I'm listening, this might be an important point.  Anyway, I feel safe in doing it, since I'm not really adding information, while I am feeding the players' concerns that there may be bats.  If I say the word, as DM, it is quite suggestive; so this is a sort of mind game, too.

Lothar: If the chittering sound is indeed bats, I see two options to deal with them. First, we could sneak across hoping to remain quiet enough that they won't hear us, which may be difficult for everyone in the party to accomplish. Second, we could raise a ruckus, throw a rock, and get the bats to swarm and fly off while we are all sitting safely in the tunnel. A cloud of bats issuing from the ground might be a signal to other froglings in the area. I'm willing to risk that though, since I don't know that we'll all be stealthy enough to make it across unmolested. Then again, the chittering may not be bats, but some sort of waterwheel powering an underground grain mill? Engelhart, do you have a light spell?

Engelhart: I do have a light spell still primed and ready. I vote for the stealthy approach, but if the majority wishes it, I won't be at all exceptional to casting it.

Pandred: I think the proper thing to do at this point is declarative statements, since we've more or less settled on a course of action. I offer to hold anything Embla is concerned about losing.

The phrase about making "declarative statements" comes out of my own requirements for players describing their actions.  I prefer the active verb tense when a player describes what the character is doing, opposed to what they're going to do or mean to do.  Often a player says, "I will go across the chasm," which is a way of not saying that my character is going across the chasm now, but at a later time.  If something then happens, I have had players say, "But I haven't actually gone yet: I was just making plans to go."  And while this splitting of hairs is clearly a tactic, the solutions is to have the player commit their intention in the form of verb they use.

Often, I let it slide; but if it is something truly dangerous, I will often wait for the player to state the verb in the present tense rather than in some other way.

Engelhart: I get the sling out and prepare to lay cover for Embla. Holding action otherwise.

DM: Since Embla is the go-to person, just waiting for her to speak.

While everyone else has clearly agreed upon the plan, and even though Embla herself has said that she is happy to walk along the bridge, that's not a sufficient commitment in my book.  A DM can get into big trouble with a player, or with their group, if they're not patient enough to wait and be sure about a given player's commitment.  Often, a DM can get away with it several times ... but if it becomes a habit, it is bound to cause the players to feel that the DM is running their characters, while the DM believes that it's a matter of keeping up the "momentum."

It's very easy to commit a lot of sins using the justification of momentum.  I don't believe that this is a good habit; always, always, get the player to specifically sign off on whatever action their character is taking; and if there is any feeling that the player might be in doubt, stop the game right there and ask, "Is this something you feel right about doing?"  A DM has to keep an eye out for the player who is being railroaded by the rest of the party; it is easy to feel, as one player, that you don't want to be the one dissenting voice when the rest of their party has already made up their mind about the plan.  The DM is there to even out the player lacking a supporting voice at the table, by being a good listener in the equation.  Then, if the rest of the party begins to browbeat the single player, the DM can be there to say, "Now, wait; if the player doesn't want to take part in your plan, you shouldn't bulldoze her."

This can go a long way towards helping your players trust you.

Embla: I give my backpack to Pandred, equip my javelin, and stealthily make my way across the bridge.

DM: Embla has the advantage of Stability, which gives her a 19 dexterity for checks, should there be a chance that she'll fall. It doesn't give her extra bonuses for combat (like the balance skill will), but I'll rule that she doesn't have to check her balance as she crosses, nor will she feel (as virtually anyone else would) the compulsion to get down on her hands and knees and crawl across.

Embla, you get about half way across. At this point, I'm going to need you to roll a d20. It isn't a dex check.

Okay, a few things here.  Embla has used the active tense and committed herself, while the conversation about the cave has helped instill some concern about what might happen.

At this point, because Embla is using a house rule to get across (note the link), I want to provide a quick synopsis about the rule to forstall any doubts about how I'll play it.  There are voices out there who talk about how searching for rules or calling out rules destroys momentum; I strongly disagree.  Not knowing how the rules work exactly destroys momentum, particularly if the DM assumes everyone knows the rule, when they don't.  The DM should have the rule handy, be ready to explain it clearly and quash any unnecessary discussion of the rule at the time it is being used.  This helps everyone be on the same page, reduces argument and definitely maintains momentum.  I was able to do so here in text; in speech, we're talking 30 seconds of game time.

Finally, I tell Embla what die I want her to roll.  I do not tell her why.  Unless the die succeeds in this particular case (noticing the thing hovering in the gloom), it is none of her business why.  This is why I don't say a "perception roll" or any other such description.

I understand that in most games, the players themselves declare that they're going to make this roll or that, depending on their abilities.  I consider this very poor game management.  The players, being voyeurs in the setting, should have no idea whatsoever that a given roll is needed or useful.  If Embla, in the case above, were to say, "I roll a dice to find out if I can see anything," my answer would be that no, she can't.  She has to get to the middle of the bridge, first.  I know that; Embla doesn't.  Nor do I want to warn her that she has to get half-way across before any check is necessary?  Her character wouldn't know this.

All die rolls, therefore, are my bailiwick.  I run the setting and the relationship between the setting and the characters.  Therefore I, and I alone, will say when a die roll is needed, and unless the matter is obvious, I won't say why a die is needed.

This forces the player to run the character and not the situation.  And it helps build tension, as the character cannot control their own intel.  They have to put themselves out there, moving forward, unsure of anything they might find, making themselves vulnerable to the setting that I run.

Embla: I roll a 10.

DM: About half-way across the bridge, you take notice of something floating in the air, about 20 feet to your right, just below the ceiling. At a second look, it seems to be a large insect, about 18-24 inches in diameter.

Note I do not tell Embla what she rolled for, exactly.  In fact, she rolled her wisdom or under, and I'll often say, "You made your wisdom check."  But that isn't the main point here.  The main point is what she sees because she made the check, so I skip over the die roll and go straight for the details.  This is another way to maintain momentum.  It isn't that the die rolls aren't important, but we don't need to spend overlong discussing them in the context of what's happening.

At this point, because of the play-by-post structure of the campaign, we were having issues with availability; I jumped ahead and had Embla's character point out to Engelhart the location of the hovering thing.  At a game table, I would never do this, but sometimes the blog requires adaptation to keep the game going, particularly on a day where I have plenty of time to run, and one player may not be available to comment regularly.

DM: Engelhart has his sling ready. Engelhart, you'll have to roll a d20 to see if you can see it in the shadows.

Engelhart: A 9 is rolled.

DM: Engelhart, you can barely see it. The thing is wobbling, moving ever so slightly and definitely not attached to the ceiling or wall of the cavern.

Embla: I scan to see if there are other insects within view.

Although Embla can see it because of her position, I'm ruling as a DM that Engelhart can only see it if it is pointed out ~ and then, only if Engelhart also makes a wisdom check.  Engelhart is a cleric, so it is no problem.

Embla will naturally ask me if there are other creatures she can see.  This is a deep-set player habit and one that is hard to break.  Because of her check, I have revealed this one.  She can see this one only because of the check; if there were others that she could see, I would have told her ... but the default is to ask the DM if there are others the player can see, that the DM has not revealed.

I understand this; it is bred from hundreds of hours of bad DMing, and the habit of letting the player roll for information, when the player wishes.  I am grateful that Embla is a good enough player that she says, "I scan for ..." rather than "I roll for ..."  The latter is far more common and far less correct.

Engelhart: I loudly whisper for Embla to get back and take my aim as I girate the sling.  I don't yet wish to strike however, as I don't want to provoke it... but I will if it starts getting nearer to Embla.

DM: None others that you can see, Embla.  Engelhart, Embla is not remotely in your line of fire.  It's 20 feet to Embla's right, and Embla is out on the bridge. Engelhart is still at the mouth of the tunnel, not on the bridge. You'll have to step out onto 0306 to use your sling.

Of late I've been seeing people talk about "DMing of the Mind," which means the running is managed by description alone, without props or maps.  The above is an example of the problems this creates.  Engelhart has misunderstood and thinks the floating thing is in front of  Embla, and wants to avoid friendly fire.  In fact, there's no friendly fire here to worry about.

I'm a little terse with the word "remotely" in my answer.  I wanted to stress the safety of Engelhart's shot; instead, it sounds a bit like I'm reproaching his error.  Again, too many statements like this can get on a player's nerves, and hard feelings are the result.

My last point to the above is that Engelhart has failed to specify his own location before firing, and he has failed to indicate if he is using a stone or a sling bullet.  I can't fault him.  This particular oversight is so regular that everyone does it, constantly.  There is just something resistant about players who use slings specifying the object being slung and the whole matter of stating clearly where a character is standing.  I manage this as a DM by indicating the necessity of stating a position; I've forgotten in this case to correct the lack of naming the missile.  Usually, I designate the character has used a bullet as a default; it reduces the number of bullets while the bullet offers the best possible damage.  Costs the player money though.

Also, Engelhart (and Embla as seen below) both seem oblivious of the fact that they're 40 feet apart, and can't really whisper to each other.  But this, too, is a typical player error.  It is often really, really hard to put oneself into the actual situation, and see the actual distances in one's mind.  In this case, I let it go; how loud they speak makes no difference to the creature anyway.

Embla: I retreat to Engelhart. I whisper to Engelhart that perhaps we could try waking it up before we attack it? We don't know what it is, and we might be able to scare it off - we're certainly fighting at a disadvantage here, and I doubt we could all sneak across the bridge without alerting it.

DM: As you step back a hex, it whizzes out of the dark, staggeringly fast; you stop from reflex, expecting that it is about to attack. Instead it stops in flight, ten feet away. It can be seen clearly now. It has the fat body of a dragonfly, with a long tail and SIX wings, not four. These wings are beating like a hummingbird's, creating the chittering sound. There is a long proboscis emerging from the front of its body, which seems to have an armored helmet-like front.

This is what I've been waiting for: Embla to move.  Embla's statement indicates that she makes her full movement towards Engelhart, but I discount that.  Once I say that the creature swoops in, because of her first movement, I have to give room as a DM for Embla to change her mind, with the new info I'm giving her.  Often, time has to be retconned in this way; a DM has to be flexible when interpreting the practical aspects of giving actions in words, when actual senses aren't in play.  If they were in play, no doubt Embla would have her eyes firmly fixed on the creature ~ and would react instinctively to the creature moving at the moment she moves.  I have to take that into account when DMing.

Okay, the creature itself.  This is a stirge in my game.  It's a large dragonfly like insect, one that can flit around very fast.  I know most see it as a bat-like creature, or sometimes a mosquito; but that hasn't felt scary enough to me.  The dragonfly is the most deadly of insect hunters and there is no giant dragonfly in the original AD&D lexicon. So long ago I settled on the stirge fitting this role.

Note that while I describe the creature, I don't say that it is a stirge.  Nor do I describe what the creature is about to do, as I often see DMs do.  That's just bad form.  It is important when describing anything to keep the descriptions in the immediate present.  What the creature intends will be revealed when the time comes (or when a spell reveals it).

Embla: Oh dear. Is it fixated on me, or the rest of the party?

DM: Definitely you.

Pandred: You're in front Em, and there's no room to maneuver. Duck for cover and let our slinger get this sorted! I'll hold the pack Embla gave me in one hand and start fishing for my handaxe with the other. I'd rather not lose it to the chasm but I'm sure as hell not getting whatever disease this bugger has!

It's only one stirge; but that potential fall is high in the players' minds and even through the blog format it is easy to see the tension.  I want to play on that as DM by keeping my answers to the player's concerns short and cold.

Another sign of stress is seeing the players make up additional dangers in their minds.  I don't know from what in my description that Pandred got the idea of a disease, but something tipped that concern.  It's nice when overthinking works in a DM's favor!

Embla: I throw my javelin at the creature and retreat I throw my javelin at the creature and retreat as far as I can to the other side of the bridge (towards 1806).  Javelin: 10+1(Str)=11 to-hit.

Lothar: Fjall has a partially loaded crossbow for you Pandred. Last I remember it had two rounds completed, not sure if they still count though.

DM: The javelin misses and is gone.  The flying thing shifts to dodge it.

Strictly speaking, Embla needs to roll for initiative.  However, at the time I was prepared to believe that the creature would not move until Embla did; and that her javelin throw could be reasonably expected to happen before the stirge reached her.  Therefore, I discarded the initiative roll, maintaining momentum, without feeling the need to explain why.  I have the players well in hand at this point, if I need to impose an initiative roll, they'll simply accept it; while I have a clear, fixed idea of when the roll is needed and when it isn't.  That ideal is this: if multiple combatants come to the same place at the same moment and have an equal chance of affecting the other first, then initiative is rolled.  If, on the other hand, on is using a missile while the other is dependent on body contact (whether or not through a weapon), then initiative can be discarded.

Sometimes, and this is hard to call, if the missile-using combatant has reason to fear the charge of a body-contact assailant, there is a chance that the missile-user will freeze up and lose initiative, if the distance between combatants is slight.  But I did not think that was the case here.

I was watching the others as they discussed Fjall's crossbow.  Fjall is a hireling, so I have some control over his actions, though I tend to let the party dictate what the hireling is doing.  The party did not say so, but in my mind I had Fjall move up behind Engelhart and finish loading his crossbow.  The online party is still a little fuzzy on how my crossbow loading procedure rules work, otherwise one of them would have said specifically the words, "Fjall finishes loading his crossbow."

Anyway, Engelhart has been whirling his sling for enough time now, as the creature has hovered, so he will need to fire.

DM: Engelhart, as Embla makes for 1806, the creature will zero in on her. I'm going to give you initiative, so please let go a stone or bullet [indicate which] if it pleases you.

The tunnel is so narrow, Pandred, that only one of you can stand in it and see the chamber. It is just large enough to fit Engelhart's shoulders. He has to step out onto the bridge to fire.

Embla, please tell me what your movement rate is.

Embla: I have 4 AP currently.

DM: Okay, Embla has 4 AP. Halfway across is 1006, she backed up to 0906, now she moves towards 1806 (as fast as she is able); that puts her in 1306.

Technically, all this moving, plus her javelin throw, accounts for two total rounds. This gives time for Engelhart to emerge from the tunnel, spin his sling, roll to hit, and still have 2 action points to spend.

I know that Engelhart said he has his sling "ready," but I have to read this as having his sling in hand. He has time to move 1 AP, load, fire, then be left with 2 AP after.

Here I am in full DM-mode.  There are a lot of things going on; there's information I need to have and things I need to relay to the party, so that everyone understands what is going on.  Though the party are all here together, they form three basic groups: Embla, Engelhart and those in the tunnel.

Primarily, I have to establish two principle details: placement of people and time.  No one has really talked about how long any of this has taken, so I'm stepping up.  I'm measuring time from the moment Engelhart wants to fire at the stirge; nothing before that moment really matters in terms of time.  With time established, I want Embla to know exactly where she is, I want Engelhart to know the same, and I want those in the tunnel (which is very narrow, only four feet wide) to know that only the front person there can take a meaningful action.

I want to do this as fast and as clearly as possible, to maintain the slightly freaked out moment that Embla has as she runs for the end of the bridge before being potentially struck and knocked off the side.  I don't want to spend any time discussing this possibility: I don't have to, for one, the player's imagination is stronger than my words would be and again, I don't want to talk about the future.  Not until it happens.

In my book, How to Run, I talk about how important it is for the DM to predict the future in gaming.  This is just such a case.  However, I don't want to predict just one future.  While managing the details, I'm lining up in my mind what rolls Embla will have to make if the stirge hits her and stuns her; and what will happen if the stirge hits and doesn't stun, but grips her clothing and drives its proboscis into her body, to start sucking blood. And what will happen if the stirge misses.  And even what will happen if I roll a 1 to hit and the stirge fumbles.

It isn't just about what will happen to Embla, but what the stirge will do next if Embla falls, or the stirge fumbles, or the stirge misses and has reason to search for another target.

And because I've been playing D&D for 38 years, I'm running all these future movies in my head in a couple of seconds; if I'm doing it at an actual gaming table, I'm doing this without thinking, in the blink of an eye.  It's called pattern recognition and the book explains how this works.

Oh, and I remembered here to ask Engelhart to designate a stone or a bullet for his sling, even though it was technically already loaded.  But these things can be retconned.  He never did tell me, though ... which, as I say, is typical and not really a big problem.

Engelhart: I fire. 18 to hit, 2 mighty damage.

DM: That hits! And this may surprise you. The creature spins out of control and drops into the cavern. Lucky shot. It was AC 2.

Because of my mass to hit dice rules, a stirge does not weigh very much and therefore, though 1+1 hit dice, cannot have many hit points.  They're a lightweight creature, but fearful in large numbers.

I thought the combat was over at this point, and I was glad.  I did not really want to throw a stirge at the party; I hoped for an easy kill.  Unfortunately, I needed to get the party to the kitchen that came after, which needed a chimney, and which could not logically buttress the chamber the party had been in before encountering the bridge (this can all be discerned from the Juvenis blog).  Moreover, I'd dropped a lot of water out of the previous chamber with a mechanism, so I needed somewhere for that water to go ~ and so I conceived of this bridge chamber, with water running on the bottom.

With a passage to the outside, I could not rationalize that such a chamber would be empty, so, I had to put something in the room.  A stirge seemed frightful enough, given the potential fall.  Mostly, however, I wanted to get the party to the kitchen, where there was treasure, which they had earned through overcoming many obstacles and at least one big fight.

Unfortunately, after "killing" the stirge, the cleric wrote (and this got eaten by blogger):

Engelhart: No, wait. I forgot I don't have proficiency with the bloody thing! Shouldn't have posted from the hip, many apologies. Rewind as needed, I will have to turn in.

Well, damn.

I really considered several ways of letting this pass.  Oh, I really wanted to have the thing just fly away or justify Engelhart hitting the thing, so we could move on ... but no, the right thing was to retcon the incident, which I did.

Okay, I'm going to stop here.  This has been four hours of writing and I'm done.  I hope it helps deconstruct the moment to moment pattern of my running experience; I hope it helps crystallize what I'm sure most DMs do, but don't recognize, in their own games.


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