Somewhat More Than a Challenge

I feel I should make clear the "challenge" the DM faces in attempting the design formulation that I've been proposing: 1) that the game should be hard enough to play that players can lose heart or contentment as the game progresses; 2) that 'fun' is not a design feature; 3) that the game setting be fixed and reasonably predictable; and that 4) the player's actions should result in a change to the setting, which then adjusts and directly addresses what the players have been doing.

Is this hard?  Yes.  Extremely.  Is this beyond the ken of most DMs? Without question.  And let me address that for just a moment.

We cannot expect others or even ourselves to step into an interpretation of a game that is distinctly different from what we have expected it to be for a long time and then do well.  What I've been arguing flies flat out in the face of "role-playing games" as they've been sold and promoted since their inception.  The potential difficulty of the game has never been embraced by the makers of the game nor the company that ultimately acquired the property from those makers.  In every case, in every media release, in every publicized demonstration of the game, the principal goal has been to make the game accessible to a wider buying public, a public that can't be counted on to attempt to play a difficult game that can't be easily explained or mastered.  There's no benefit in attempting to promote this, not by the company continuously re-inventing the game, not by clubs who count their importance by the number of their attendees, not by game stores who care first and foremost about sales and certainly not by virtually every game-master discussing the game on the web, having been steeped in the marketing culture of Cons, modules, splat books, fictionalized role-playing novels, podcasts, blogs and a nostalgic background in junior high school and high school introduction.

D&D, and the other role-playing games that followed, can't be properly compared to other games such as baseball, hockey, golf, Monopoly, RISK, chess or bridge, etcetera, because those games can be easily explained.  The "hard" part inherent in those games depends upon the actual skill of of the participants: but take six-year-olds and teach them hockey and they can enjoy the "difficulty" of the game against each other, even if a group of seven-year-olds would wipe the ice with them.

But D&D isn't like that.  The actual process of the game is more difficult than the play.  Once it has been decided to kill the chimera, further game play is dependent on whether or not one survives.  The player can add information as the fight goes on, but most of the actual process is spent in determining chance of hitting, weapon used, effectiveness of weapon, personal skills, losses, niggling details surrounding every part of the experience and, finally, waiting to see which lives or dies, the player or the chimera.

Video games manage this process by greatly simplifying all the details so that the player need only press a button; the speed at which the battle is resolved is maximized and so twenty seconds or so of pushing a button at a hard target will sort out the result.  D&D isn't like that.  Much of D&D, no matter how simplified we make the game, is accounting.

This means that, for most people playing, the quality of the game is based solely on how much accounting the players and the DM are prepared to do.  Less rules, less accounting.  More DM fiat, less accounting.  More story-driven, character-driven parley and general in-character chatter, less accounting.  And if we get rid of details like experience gained, hit points, levels, 'to hit' rolls and other features of combat, all of which I've seen proposed for throwing into the trash, less accounting still.

Those who describe "a better game" as one in which accounting takes place on a grander, deeper scale (meaning that rules and details are added), are considered pariahs and abuse-mongers among the much larger populace of participants who have determined that "better" describes a game in which the character sheet is drastically reduced in scope and detail.  These are people who don't want to play golf, or hockey, or anything else that requires sweating.  These are people who, when they buy a game, immediately seek out the "cheats" pages on the internet because even the automated process of having a computer calculate out pleasure and rewards for time spent can't wait, but must have their rewards right now.

Because of all this, we can't merely describe the sort of D&D I'm proposing with those four points that started this post as "challenging."  Let's be correct.  D&D as I try to play it is unpleasant, unmanageable, unfair to the DM and the player, unreasonable in its rules' systems and, for the most part, incomprehensible in terms of how it produces "fun."

Which it doesn't.  My game produces strain.  My game produces panic.   My game promotes feelings of inadequacy and frustration and, occasionally when a party can't get its shit together, exhaustive periods of boredom.  When new players come into my game, they're familiar with my online persona and they presume, not always rightly, that I'm waiting in the tall grass with a knife, waiting to gut them.  And even though I will occasionally step out and say, "Relax, I'm not just going to kill you for no reason," they don't believe me.  Largely, because they have no idea what would count as a "reason" and, just in case, it's best to think everything does.

They have no idea because I'm perfectly ready to blindside a party with something they didn't expect, I'm good at that, and people have personally witnessed me doing it.

So why?  I ask you.  Why would anyone want to play in a game like mine?  It's just a lot of accounting and rules-making and reading and memory-work, just to stay on top of what your player can and cannot do, much less trying to figure out what the NPCs might want to do, or how the world itself fits together.

Screw all that!  Please, just give us a lot of description and a king who wants a thorough back and forth with us about our backstory.

Ternketh VI: The Mess

This post will wrap up the events from Saturday night's running.  The remaining characters below ground have opened the door the harpy is certain to have gone through, and discovered more zombies:

Only three characters: Demifee, Holly & Sharper.

I'm sorry I didn't get a screen shot of this before the fighting began.  This is just two rounds into the combat.  Sharper opened the door on the top right, surprised the zombies (the third time in a row I rolled a two or less for surprise!) and rushed in.  It took a round for them to get into position.  Demifee leapt on the table (easy, as she had the bench to step on) and hit the one zombie for three damage.  Holly then hit the other for six and Sharper ran along the benches and missed.  The zombies attacked back, hitting Holly for not enough to stun and two of them smacking Demifee around for 10 damage - enough to stun her.  This is where the running finally ended (this was the last combat round I ran).

I want to remark on how my bad luck will seriously affect the party's game.  I can set up really cruel and miserable monsters, but if the party comes into the room and I consistently roll that the monsters are surprised, then lose initiative to the party after that, I'm giving two free attacks to the party every damn time.  This gives them enough starting hits to cause the enemy to be more easily stunned, letting the party walk through tough monsters even though they do have heavy hit points.

I don't mind.  As I always say, I'm not invested - if the party gets lucky, good!  The risk going in was the same - it isn't the party's fault if I have a pair of threes when they pull a full house.  I know that there are DMs who will shift and re-balance the adventure as their luck proves to be bad, but I think this is wrong.  The party ought to be rewarded for good luck just the same as if their luck is bad and mine is good.

This is a full dungeon and there are plenty of opportunities for my luck to change.  I don't believe in empty dungeon room after empty dungeon room; thus I build my monsters so that I can attack the party again and again with something, even if that something is so minor it's only good for attrition.  Attrition counts!  When the party comes to the end of the combat, having already expended their healing powers (oh my gawd, I'm not talking about the ridiculous pathfinder/4e healing bullshit here), all I want is for them to pause before finally being faced with the big bad.  Attrition throughout the adventure will make a big, big difference when the end game comes around.

I'm surprised that many DMs don't seem to get this.  Minimalizing healing is a huge part of the game.  How can the players possibly give a crap about characters who more closely fit the Wile E. Coyote stereotype (can take damage endlessly with no effect) and not John McClane?  When they get to the end, we want their characters bleeding, limping, sore, broken and tired; not with every hair in place, strolling in without a care.  How is it that the same fanboys who bitch endlessly about a scar that was obtained in scene 23 is now missing in scene 24 want to run characters who do the equivalent of rushing off to the make-up trailer before having to fight the big bad?

Anyway, the benches in the above image are all original work - and like everything else in the dungeon, they're interactive.  Some might have noticed in this series that several of the chairs have been moved around as necessary, for characters to get past.

Here's a shot of all the underground in one picture, showing how much was explored and where the characters are now in relation to each other:

As of Saturday, Jan 30, 2016

If anyone wants to see any of these features close up, let me know and I'll post them on the blog on on twitter, whichever is easier.  For those who don't know, my twitter is @Tao_of_DnD.  For example, here's a look at the crossbowman Fehim who is up in the keep's yard:

I really, really like how sharp I've made the crossbow.

Ternketh V: Zombies Below

The party down below has lost track of the harpy.  Olie, the thief who was charmed, has gained control over himself again and chosen to open the door across from that the harpy left (but through which the harpy definitely did not exit).

This has revealed two more of the same zombies (again, surprised).  The party has rushed into the room to kill them. The room has small pieces of broken glass and cups, suggesting it was a sort of 'tavern' - but the zombies shuffling through the room have shoved these things to the corners and out of the way.  Incidentally, there's not much dust in the keep, either - the zombies make good housekeepers.

The back party has gotten jammed in the small room, where Holly, Sharper, Demifee, Taver and Mazonn (a non-level man-at-arms) are bottled up.  Sven, at the bottom, is breaking open the chests to see what's in them.

The two zombies are basically just a distraction.  There's a certain logic for their being here - the harpies are forever opening doors and now and then a zombie leaks in.  They're not much of a threat to the harpies, who can just rush past them fast enough not to be attacked (and a harpy can generally make quick business of a zombie, if necessary).  For the adventure's purpose, two zombies serve as both an opportunity for me to sap a few hit points and to keep the momentum going.  A few x.p. for the characters doesn't hurt either, though with these higher level characters it doesn't mean much.

Rooms like these are easy to create - I already have a table and chairs, so I can make as many rooms as I need by just duplicating previously created items.

Anyway, the party did destroy the first zombie quickly.  On the left, Maze the 1st level cleric has already hit the other one.

They can't quite see around the hallway's corner, so that has been left blacked out on the map.

Again, this represents the furthest these characters reached with this running.  The players do seem to be happy, however, even with this slow movement.  They have a lot of questions about what they're seeing - and yes, they are being cautious.  It has taken a little more than three years of real time for Olie to reach 8th level as a thief.  He definitely doesn't want to lose that, nor the henchmen he wouldn't be allowed to keep.

It's worth noting that not everyone chose to come after these zombies.  The party has split again - and I'll deal with the rest of them on another post.

Ternketh IV: Zombies in the Yard

Vlad opens the door:

Upon seeing a greenish-yellow zombie, Vlad the ranger rolled a 1 for his own surprise and was thus unable to close the door again.  Thankfully, the zombies were surprised also, so after a one-round lull the battle resumed in the doorway.  These zombies are not undead (but the party, surprisingly, hasn't figured out yet what they are, so no giving it away!).

It was something of a surprise.  The party was expecting harpies, of course - but I figure, the keep has been abandoned for about three years and the harpies have been fouling the place up.  There's bound to be some kind of toxic growths in the place, giving plenty of opportunity for other monsters than harpies (it's always good to change up a dungeon, not just give the same monster over and over).  I have other surprises laying in wait for the party.

A few game details.  One thing I really like about using publisher to run my combats is that I can put notes right on the map as the combat is going on.  This zombie has been hit for six points but not killed (they have a random 2d8 for hit dice).  The party can look at it during the combat, see which zombie was hit and for how much, allowing them to plan their round-to-round tactics.  The red circle is for me, to remind myself that this zombie was stunned in the previous round and therefore won't be doing anything this round.  The other zombies will move around it accordingly - and when the zombie round is over, I will remove the symbol.

This is marvelous for keeping track of twenty or thirty enemies that have all taken damage.  For the most part, I don't write down how many hit points any of the monsters have, even after I roll their hit points out.  If there aren't many monsters, I memorize the total hit points, subtract in my head and if stunning occurs.  I remember clearly that this zombie had 8 total hit points (it was killed soon after).

If I'm dealing with a LOT of monsters, for sometimes I have combats with up to forty or fifty opponents, and I forget the number of hit points a given monster has, then I can use the number on the map as a guideline.  For example, since this zombie wasn't killed by 6 damage, it must have somewhere between 7 and 16 total hit points.  I can simply roll 2d8 again, more than once if necessary, producing a new hit point total for the next damage taken to be measured against.  Most likely, the zombie will be killed by another blow or at least stunned again (since stunning is based against the zombie's present hit points, not their original total).

Not having to address something written down on paper helps clear my desk, eliminates any need for a screen to keep back info from the players and as I say, the number on the actual game map improves the player's awareness of what's happened and what they've done.  They can then attack injured creatures to get rid of them, rather than wasting their attacks on fresh targets.

In the images above, and below, the circular staircase and the zombies are my own work.  I couldn't find any good example of the sort of zombies I wanted, so I had to make my own.  They are fashioned from several mixed color layers and then a shadow is added (nicely scary, I think).

The party fought back the zombies in short order (I rolled low hit points for these creatures and they're not very powerful, even for low level characters):

In fact, the party had a series of beautiful hits and no misses, killing four zombies in one round.  This drove the zombies right back to the stairs, until Roma (in the front) dropped his spear.  That's represented as an arrow on the ground to his left.

The small blue symbol next to Sunsky indicates that his bow is loaded - he didn't have a chance to fire it, however, as the party destroyed the zombies.  Again, such little symbols help keep track of things.  For casting spells, which in my world can take a round or more, I use a little green circle.  If a crossbow is being loaded, I will use a small blue circle for each round - thus a heavy crossbow can be fired after three circles have been added to the character's hex.  The same with spells, as the higher level spells can take two or more combat rounds to load in my world.  This system helps limit a wizard's power.

There are yet zombies filling the stairs down, so this combat isn't over.  As far as the game on Saturday is concerned, however, this is as far as the party in the yard got.  It was 11 p.m. and we called it.

Four and a half hours goes by so fast.

Ternketh Part II: Guards' Quarters

I had meant to take screenshots throughout the movement of the party through Ternketh . . . but of course, as the game commenced I got distracted.  As such, the next image I have in the chronology is this one:

Depicted: Olie, 8th level thief; Sven, 6th level cleric;
Sharper (blue), 7th level fighter; Holly (top of the stairs), 4th level fighter

Olie, wandering forward on his own, walked right past the first harpy that was hiding between bunkbeds on the bottom right.  Sven has just time to get to the door when he sees the harpy zone in on Olie (who never checked his corners), surprising him (he rolled a 1) and proceeding to rip into his back with a critical hit, right off.  I've increased the amount of damage a harpy does in AD&D, to 1-6/1-6/1-8.

Olie made his saving throw against charm, but the party lost initiative after the surprise so I got to attack him again:  all misses.  The party rushed in, Olie hit the harpy for all of 1 damage.  The harpy attacked back and hit him. This time, Olie did not make his save (yes, I do make it count every attack) and was charmed.  He dropped his weapons and then stood there.

Unfortunately for the harpy, the party had all rushed into the cramped room.  The harpy flew over the table, around the far side of the pillar.  The party was able to throw a dagger (missed) and a hammer (missed), but being in heavy armor they could not quite catch up (my harpies move 6 hexes, or have 6 AP, per round - they're fast!).  Then the harpy fled out the door, as shown:

Added: Demifee, 6th level mage; Taver, 2nd level illusionist;
Perkin, 4th level fighter; Maze, 1st level cleric

Demifee had time to get off a bee cantrip, shown as a small black and yellow striped circle, which did one more damage to the harpy.  The harpy's total damage to Olie was 11.  The thief then took 8 more damage as the party decided to bat him out of his charmed state (which fits in my rules for such things).  So, the party starts against the harpies 19-2.  Oh, and the harpy got away.

Note that everything in this room is interactive.  The doors can be opened and the chairs and table moved around.  The players tell me where they want to move as combat happens (and that can be complicated as we work out who goes first both on the basis of their dexterity and their position in retrospect to doors, furniture and each other).  I got called on my own rules a few times by the new guy, which is absolutely great, as I don't mind countermanding my own statements if my own rules say I'm wrong (the rules are always right, I am never right).

On the above, the harpy and the three chests in the room are all dundjinni's.  The rest is my own.  Were I to send the publisher file to the reader, I would strip the dundjinni stuff out but it would be easy for you or anyone to simply pull them off line again and fit them in.  I was glad to find a harpy on line - I did not look forward to trying to make one of my own.  The images that are 'transparent' are those with a crosshatching behind the image when the preview is looked at on google images.

This is the first three rooms below the castle walls - a small guard's rec room, the bunk room and a sort of commander's room at the top.  I've explained to the party that the harpies have defecated and urinated on everything, defiling it, but that it has been long enough that the effect is mostly dried (it was done a lot when Ternketh was taken but the harpies don't renew the effect regularly).  So the value of what they find is questionable.

Ternketh Keep: the Beginning

During my game last night, I took some screen shots of the party entering the keep at Ternketh, the floating city I've mentioned a few times these past two weeks.  I thought it might be fun to follow along with the party.  They didn't get as far as I expected, but I put that down somewhat to choice anxiety and in part to the party numbering 21 characters:

Four main characters, seven henchmen, five followers and five hirelings.

Basically, a squad.  I had the players "run" the NPCs - subject to veto on my part if they had the NPCs do something irrational, splitting them up so that everyone ran five people (and one ran six).  Most of these underlings are low level and will drop out as combat begins to heat up, but at the start it was a lot of uncertain micromanaging of where everyone should stand, what they should do, who can do what and so on that did slow down the game's momentum.

The above image depicts them entering the east edge of the keep through the narrow 6 foot wide entrance (there are no wagons in the floating city of Ternketh).  The bridge, shown on the right, extends directly over empty space, reaching from the floating keep to the outer town, which I have not mapped.  The town is a collection of 'docks,' or floating islands of wood connected to one another by rope bridges about ten feet long.  It was emptied and destroyed years ago by the harpies of the keep, so that few live there.  The harpies prefer the keep, meaning I only have to map the keep (yay).  The keep, the bridge and the town all float 2,500 feet above the surface of the earth.

The six letters A through F are a guideline to indicating movement.  The player indicates that a character moves F-F-E-F to show which hexes are being entered during a round of movement.  I can move this key around as I need to, so as the party changes their place on the keep, they can use the key as a guideline.  They're getting used to the key, as well (first time I've used it), so this has also slowed down the momentum a bit.  It will get faster as the party adjusts to it and doesn't need the key on the map any more.

When I put the first image of the character on the map, I was stunned at how BIG the keep is.  I've been working on it diligently for two weeks, even redoing part of it, but I hadn't really considered the size of the thing.

Obviously, this shows a very small part of the keep I posted earlier this week.  The gate is shown in the above image rather than the ramparts above it.  As well, I drew out a total of 21 images of characters, all my own work (though there is some duplication for the NPCs, partly because they don't matter and partly because it helps the party discern them from important characters).  Still, everyone looks fairly good.  It was a lot of work.

Everything in the above image is my work except for the flags and the blood on the ground.  The bones are my own.  They look really good, even up close:

The flags and the blood are obtained from a design site called Dundjinni.  I found them by searching Dundjinni on google images, typing "dundjinni flag" or "dundjinni blood."  These are links that lead to the Dundjinni forum, where links can get you to plenty of user art or other things.  They come conveniently 'transparent' so that they can be easily inserted into a publisher document.

These things are listed as "free" by the company itself.  According to the company website, I am breaking the contract of being a user of this material (though all I've done is view and copy the website, I am defined - by the company - as a "user").  Just so the reader is aware.

I will make every effort to tell when I'm using dundjinni images and when I am not, so that the reader can identify what's mine and what isn't.

At this point in the adventure, the party has merely entered the castle yard.  They see doors on the left and right and are making up their minds what to do.  There's nothing moving that they can see.

Practice Improves

Redone.

The Three Cups Inn

Just a little fun.  Figuring out just what I want to do with this image tonight.  Took me almost as long to make this as the keep I posted Thursday:

Tried to represent the people as they would actually be sized.

It's a question of how detailed something like this needs to be.

A Place for Harpies

See the updated version of this image on this post.  I had an error occur
after I had made this.

This took less time than expected: about five and a half hours.  But I had help; I used this art by Bogie-DJ as a template.

The setting is for the keep in the sky that I spoke about a few days ago, involving an unknown number of harpies.  I've posted a clear version above but for the game I need to overlay it with a hex map:

5 feet per hex

I can't say too much about it because this adventure hasn't run yet (it runs a week Saturday - I have the other party the day after tomorrow).  I can say that the large black circle is a well, through which the ground (about 2500 feet below the floating keep) can be seen.  The red/brown patches are dried blood and the yellow detritus are bones.  Beyond that, I guess the rest of it can be guessed at.

Two levels below this to create.  Looking forward to running this adventure.

The Genius of Peat and Gilkask

Let me start by apologizing.  My head space remains, for the time being, with the issue of tech levels and the changes that are growing in my head regarding the overall system.  Although I've finished an overview of those levels, I don't feel I'm done yet.  I hope the reader will indulge me a little while longer and let me go on talking about this.

After three weeks, let's come back around to the problem I presented with Gilkask, the city in the far north of Russia that I presented as a stumbling block.

I keep getting suggestions on what to do with it (some not publishable), most of them running like what Mujadaddy recently posted:

"The Brass King, a hobgoblin chief from a mining-tech-level area, has a fortified outpost, Gilkask, hidden deep in the tundra where his primitive cousins toil in open pits for the 'black fire'."

I don't want to deliberately pick on Mujadaddy here.  The description above would work as an adventure.  I wouldn't use the descriptive 'black fire' - all the creatures in my world are intelligent enough to know what coal is: a rock that burns.  Fire is orange and yellow in every part of my world, it doesn't burn black; even the coal itself is not black when it's hot, so on the whole the description doesn't make sense.  It's exactly the sort of 'rule of cool' faux-fantasy cheeze-speak that every DM feels defines the emotional feel of their world . . . but I think it is horrible, awful schlock that only cheapens a campaign into the realm of kiddie fare.  I'm quite happy to call it coal and to have the creatures who dig it out of the ground call it coal, too - because the tension and depth of my world does not rely upon giving coal a descriptive fantasy face-lift.

I'm building up to a post on self-discipline: that I am bound by the rules I assign to my world and that the world gets better because I have to stretch myself to obey those rules.  In the case of Gilkask, I've posited that the tech level ought to be 5.  This means that the settlement must obey the precepts established by a tech 5 culture - that all cultural associations are nomadic in form, that settlements are impermanent (and cannot, therefore, be 'fortified'), that higher tech practices such as agriculture and founding cannot exist, etcetera.  And because of previous rules I've set up that I am also bound to follow, Gilkask also has a population of 6,500 and it also produces coal - not because I say it does but because the city it is based upon, Norilsk, actually produces coal.

I realize it is very difficult to make many understand why this is important.  Part of the fun for me in building my world this way is that I learn - on an intrinsic, ground level - how the world works.  Prior to my discussing this part of the world (see the map), I'm prepared to believe that none of my readers had the least idea of the existence of Norilsk, its coal deposits or its geographical situation.  How, may we suppose, do I know these things?  I know because I began at one point in the world and I steadily made my way outwards until I set myself to learn everything there was to know about all the places in Krasnoyarsk Krai, where Norilsk is.  Once I learned, I adapted the territory into my world and mapped it, drawing out all the lakes shown in the map - lakes where right now people live, fishing there and watching their children skip rocks.  I didn't choose which hexes would be civilized and which would not - the rules I designed for building my world based on more research did this for me.  All I did was follow those rules to make the lay out shown on the map above, a map that revealed itself to me as I made the map, having no idea ahead of time what that revelation would be.

This is why I love to map-make so much.  Because the process is an investigation and a revelation, step by step, hex by hex, conglomeration by conglomeration.  I live in continuous fascination and awe of the profound circumstance of the world as it presents itself to me, as each new part of the world comes into being.  I'm not inventing my game world as much as I am channelling it - and in the process, letting it change me and my preconceptions again and again.

Norilsk doesn't come from my imagination.  It's a real place.  I feel that if I'm going to apply my imagination in changing its existence to one populated by nomadic hobgoblins, I should try with all my might to retain the flavour of the original.

Let me put that another way.  Rather than fabricating yet another cheesy cliche of a fortified mine, I'm using the whole world as a crutch for my imagination - forcing my imagination to adapt to the world rather than making it adapt to my imagination.  I want Norilsk, Gilkask, to live up to something really different and interesting, something more than just another humanoid king on another pile of rocks in another part of my world.  Gilkask has to be more special than that.

This is why the peat-for-coal suggestion works so well.

On the Stumbling Blocks post, kimbo made the suggestion of replacing the coal mined at Gilkask with peat.  I like this for a number of reasons - first of all because the Tunguska region, where Gilkask is, does produce peat.  It is indigenous to the area.  Peat and coal are both fuels so there is a continuity there.  And peat is easily dug up by nomadic tribes, who do use it for fuel because it is convenient and practical - particularly in areas where wood fuel doesn't exist or where wood is often too frozen to burn (seen pictures of the taiga in winter?).

So imagine Gilkask as a sort of drifting settlement of tents that does not exist in exactly the same spot from month to month, but does orbit a large peat moss lowland, usually near the large lake (Pyasin).  Each year, two hundred clans or so follow herds down the Yenisey river valley until they reach Garka.  Shown by the route drawn, these clans travel east from Garka along the shore of the lake (Vodokhran) to where they can cross over a stone plain to the next lake (Keta) . . . then down river to Gilkask.  It is a difficult route, 160 miles, but it is well-traveled and the huge fields of peat are worth the trip.

Why not simply continue down the Yenisey and come at Gilkask from the north?  Because past that grey line at the top of the map there are gnolls, the Samoyads - and travelling through their lands is dangerous for hobgoblins.  So they travel the route their forefathers took.

Once in Gilkask, they dig up several years supply of fuel, enough for their family; all around them are thousands of tents from other clans, all doing the same.  There are fights, blood feuds, exchanges of brides and tales of far away lands.  There are high clans, low clans, outcasts, clans of impressive age and size - and of course many single families.

Some will arrive in the spring and make their way out in the autumn, with just enough time to get out of the hills so they can winter on the Yenisey in Garka.  Others will be moving into the valley in autumn with the intention of wintering there, until they can get their supply ready in spring.  On the road, there will be clans moving in both directions.

I wonder if the reader can see how this makes a far more interesting adventure for the players.  Rather than one static location - Gilkask - there's a whole process of finding their way up from Garka to the peat fields.  If they don't want to be killed by thousands of hobgoblins, they must find a way to disguise themselves and maintain the disguise; or they must somehow justify being there.  Their reason for going to the fields could be a number of things.  They need the peat as an ingredient for a magic item.  They wish to start a war between the hobgoblins and the gnolls, urging one or the other side to attack across the border.  They are seeking a specific hobgoblin who happens to be journeying along the route because this is the year he goes there with his clan.

Most of all, this makes Gilkask unique.  There are no other huge hobgoblin marches; no other arctic tent cities of this magnitude; no other 'peat fields' of extraordinary activity; no comparable places where the presence of thousands of passive hobgoblins might yet worry the few gnolls who watch that frontier (offering another interesting backstory).  By obeying the restrictions of the tech 5 design, I have a far more interesting framework for running a profound adventure than just another mining outpost like so many outposts in so many sci fi/fantasy stories.

The One True Tao

How odd that there are people still who seem to believe that I am preaching the 'one true way.' Perhaps it is the title of the blog - the apparent insistence that I know the path the reader must tread, that I am demanding that the reader tread it and that if the reader refuses, the reader is an idiot or a fool.

I do not a preach a religion.  I propose an argument.

Let us suppose that you wish to be a DM.  There are a number of reasons why you may find yourself in that way of thinking - the act of creating a world appeals to you, you want to act the part of conductor for a change, you feel you have things to say or that you have a vision you wish to share, you simply like the idea of being able to manifest your design, etcetera.

These are worthy ideals.  Not because I say so, or because I believe them, but because the participants themselves describe their motivations in these words over and over.  We have an established codec for reasons why people want to DM - and whether or not I choose to make a list of them, I did not invent the codec.  Your reasons for DMing and mine are both part of that.  Both have an equal value.

My part is not in attempting you to believe you should DM for other reasons - but to propose an argument that states that there are other reasons, and that discovering those reasons can expand your self-awareness.

Here, for example, are the reasons I DM.  Here are my motivations.  Here are the ideals I personally seek to achieve.  Here are the effects I've recognized these motivations have had upon my players.  This is the first part of my argument.

Conversely, the second part of my argument continues:  here are reasons I have seen others express for why they are DM.  Here are the motivations they have related.  Here are the ideals they seek to achieve.  Here are the effects that I've seen, or that I believe will result, once these ideals are impressed upon the players.

This is what I write about when I argue.  This is all that any argument consists of.

What I have seen is a measure of my experience in playing.  My experience derives in part from my own campaign, campaigns I have participated in, campaigns described to me by others, campaigns I have seen described over these 35 years and so on.  As I have played and read all this time, I have considered, evaluated, tested and discarded many ideas and efforts to produce a game that is not now my own.  The game I run today is not the game I ran ten years ago.  Why?  Because I have rid myself of the parts of my game that were not working.

I expect that every DM does likewise.  Some consistently, some inconsistently, some willingly, some from having to concede to players who threaten to storm out.

Upon what, I ask, will the reader, as DM, base their further evaluation of their world?  Experience.  Their own, that of their friends, that of people they read on the internet.

I am on the internet.  I expect that some DMs will read what I have to write.

Should I write material and opinion that runs counter to my own experience?  I have no reason to do so.  Should I cater to the present culture in some way that appeases or pays lip service to what others believe or do, simply to be considered tolerant and therefore more likeable?  I do not see this serving anyone, except those who prefer satisfaction to change.

The 'way' is a path.  We move upon the path.  Forward, back, slowly, painfully, losing our way and returning to our course, but it is action we seek, not commendation.  It is a destination we seek.  I am not interested in promoting satisfaction in the world you have - but in promoting tools and methods for you to employ to produce the world you do not have yet.

Do I express the one true way?  Far from it.  My path is not your path, it can never be your path, for my world is my world and yours is yours.

Will it seem, however, that in building a world of complexity, in promoting that world, in flashing it before the noses of others and claiming that it is worthy to work hard, that I am spitting upon the worlds of others who will not work as hard as me to produce their worlds?  Of course.  The harvest of commitment and achievement is to call attention to friviolity and inadequacy.  It is to say, "I have done this.  What have you done?"  And to receive in reply anger, bitterness, disrespect and excuses.

"Just because I haven't chosen to 'waste' my life making a world as stupid as yours . . ." goes the counter argument.

Should I have made less world?  Should I have kept my world hidden under a bushel? Should I not have talked about the things I have learned these years?  Should I have never started a blog?

I think better that I should say, Ignore Me.  Do as you will.  But recognize that your condemnation and your brackishness does not derive from what I have done or from what I believe, but from what you have done.

Those who will do, who are happy to do, will take encouragement in knowing there is a path to tread.  They will concern themselves less with who leads them upon the path and more with the path itself, grateful in their knowledge that there IS a path.

One that we are walking upon together, arguing, challenging one another, pointing out details along the route, enjoying the movement of our limbs and the clear, crisp pleasure of our active minds.  We are engrossed in the way onward.