I found myself laughing and feeling panged at the same time last night as I worked to finish labeling one of my maps last night, the Norway coast featuring the Lofoten Islands. The gentle reader can check it out ... and if especially versed on Norwegian and Swedish geography, take note of the many, many errors.
When I started this project years ago I made a decision about just how accurate I was going to try to be. I realized that while it was necessary to make the coastlines recognizable, and to have the cities in approximately their correct places, I was going to be driven crazy if I tried to painstakingly trace out the course of every river, or include every possible lake. My take on the overall accuracy was to think in terms of a typical Renaissance-period map ... when exactitude was not a major feature.
It isn't that I wouldn't have the rivers flow generally in their right courses - but that I wouldn't be working off a real copy to sketch in every bend. I would make especial effort with the really important rivers, making sure they passed through the right cities and so on ... but where it came to the vast hinterlands, I would just have the rivers flow according to the general pattern of the elevations my plotted data assigned to the hexes. For the most part, rivers would flow into the lowest possible adjacent hex, whatever that hex was. That made it easier for me to draw in hundreds and hundreds of rivers that really didn't matter to the game, even if their actual courses were different than what I was mapping.
As such, it isn't the Earth - it's my Earth. That was good enough for me. Most of the time I can forget the issue. I'm not comparing my map all that intrinsically to the real Earth, and so I don't notice that this river or that river seems out of place.
Then came the wiki ...
Suddenly, it was important that my maps have labels, to make them more accessible for people who haven't crawled with their eyes and hands over the globe. I may have the names of regions and mountain ranges in my head, but others don't. They need names. So with putting the maps on the wiki, I knew I'd have to start working on that aspect of the maps that - sincerely - isn't really a lot of fun.
While I was at it, I reasoned, I ought to add another feature I've been thinking about for a few years, which also wasn't going to be a lot of fun. I wanted to include mountains over 1,000 ft. At least, putting down mountains for which I had information. Because let's face it, finding lists and lists of mountains that are consistent for everywhere isn't easy. More to the point, the lists look awful dull, and plotting them on a map according to their latitude and longitude is duller still.
So this last week I took a short cut. I superimposed the real world over my false world, and dropped the mountains into the hexes in short order.
Problem is, my world's dimensions are skewed and shifted because of its hexed representation, and the map I used to superimpose over my world is of a completely different map projection. I knew this, of course. it's something I'd never had done if I wanted to adhere to the least accurate provision of cartographic responsibility. But as I said, that struck me as inordinately time consuming and, as I said, boring. I wanted fast, so I created a fast method, and the result is ...
Wide ranging [pun] inaccuracies, on a scale that makes even me shudder. Mountains on the wrong sides of cities, mountains far from the borders they're supposed to be defining ... sheer unreality. Still, overall, fitting in general the ranges they're supposed to represent and still serving the purpose for including them in the first place: so that the player, entering that hex, can have me say, "This is the mountain you see." Even if, on Earth, it's really thirty miles over there.
And so, having scattered mountains over Norway and Sweden, I settled down to label the lakes and rivers ... forcing me to chuckle in red-faced embarrassment.
Rivers flowing apart when they should have joined together. Rivers not flowing from lakes they should be flowing from, rivers turning to the right instead of the left, rivers ending up in the wrong place. In short, hopeless, ridiculous inaccuracies. But what can I do? Reorder the whole map again, the color schemes, painstakingly organize those rivers so that they're recognizable to people living in northern Sweden? What, for a D&D campaign?
Oh, fuck it. It's the 17th century and it's good enough. I'm god, if I want the river to pour this way I'll stick my finger in the dirt and make the damn valley how it pleases me. Concessions must be made. I don't have the plotting program to make it more accurate and even if I did now, I wouldn't go back. I still have four continents I've never even touched, plus half of Europe and three quarters of Asia left to do. I might try to be more accurate going forward, but old ground is old ground and to hell with it.
But just for the record, I know very well how unrealistic I'm being, better than anyone I think, since I know exactly where I've cheated. I wanted to say so, and to point out that just because you do steal from the real world doesn't mean you must adhere to its template. If it suits you to shift the streets of Paris around for your own purposes, feel free to do so. It is fantasy, after all.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Breaking Off Combat
I have been working to break a bad habit I have, wherein combats are almost always resolved the same way, until one or the other group is dead. It is not really the way battles are fought, even between small groups of people, except of course in the movies.
You may take any number of battle scenes: Henry V, Braveheart, Spartacus, Gladiator, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy ... and the onscreen depiction is classic: side A and side B stand facing one another, until one force rushes into the other, or both forces rush together. What follows is a mash-up of slaughter and butchery, with no one in close order, until virtually all of the enemy is dead or fled. My D&D combats have tended to follow this motif ... mixed up as much as possible, particularly in how the combat is joined, but still with the central theme being that side A and side B duels to the death.
The fault, I feel, begins with the rule that states the participant that stays is entitled to one free hit on the participant who takes flight. This tends to reduce a party member's willingness to turn and run, and my willingness to give parties a free hit on NPC's ... the result being that battles, once joined, tend to stay joined.
Recently I have taken note that fighting between participants in actual combat do not tend to stay in close proximity to one another; six to eight feet is quite consistent, with participants moving forward to smash and blow a few times before breaking off again to judge one another.
Now, there's some argument in that for rounds being longer than they are (I've recently expanded a round in my world to 12 seconds from six) but I don't want to talk about that here. I merely make the point to say that, if two persons were eight feet apart, and one chose to run, the other could hardly have a convenient last moment stab. Consider the distance between Inigo and Count Rugen, just prior to Count Rugen's turning and running.
I also point out that accounts of battle that we have show that participants are quite able to pull back from the heat of melee as a unit, so that most large scale battles are fought by driving off the enemy, who reforms for another attack, falling back again and reforming again, giving up ground and retreating to a better position, the tide of battle turning back and forth with both sides remaining in close order and not flying apart into disarray. In fact, disarray is a sure and certain way for your force to get itself wiped out ... it is, in war, the WORST form of fighting. Two battle sides who were both in disarray would be blown to retreat, in the hopes of reforming into ranks before the other side was able, and therefore crushing the opponent.
In D&D, where the skirmishing is usually small scale, a combat between a very tough band of characters might be broken down more by small attacks by groups of 5-8 goblins, rushing in from different points of the compass, hoping to get the best opportunities from initiative, throwing a few spears, exchanging a few blows and immediately running away. Meanwhile, bowmen continue to harrass the party. Given the party tendencies for heavy armor, it would reduce their opportunities to chase down these goblin groups. Before, the party could have killed three goblins every time they turned to run away ... but no longer.
Most of all, this does not happen in the space of twenty minutes, but in the space of twenty hours ... said goblin harrassers jumping forth just long enough to force the party to keep awake, themselves sleeping and resting in shifts, while the party gets more, and more tired. Until the party is feeling the characteristics of forced march.
So that a high-level party which could usually handle 60 goblins in a stand-up fight finds themselves wittled down bit by bit, getting more and more freaked out as the damn, bloody goblins won't ... leave ... them ... alone!
Their only hope is to find a defendable place, hopefully with a source of water - or even better, the sight of civilization, before it's too late!
You may take any number of battle scenes: Henry V, Braveheart, Spartacus, Gladiator, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy ... and the onscreen depiction is classic: side A and side B stand facing one another, until one force rushes into the other, or both forces rush together. What follows is a mash-up of slaughter and butchery, with no one in close order, until virtually all of the enemy is dead or fled. My D&D combats have tended to follow this motif ... mixed up as much as possible, particularly in how the combat is joined, but still with the central theme being that side A and side B duels to the death.
The fault, I feel, begins with the rule that states the participant that stays is entitled to one free hit on the participant who takes flight. This tends to reduce a party member's willingness to turn and run, and my willingness to give parties a free hit on NPC's ... the result being that battles, once joined, tend to stay joined.
Recently I have taken note that fighting between participants in actual combat do not tend to stay in close proximity to one another; six to eight feet is quite consistent, with participants moving forward to smash and blow a few times before breaking off again to judge one another.
Now, there's some argument in that for rounds being longer than they are (I've recently expanded a round in my world to 12 seconds from six) but I don't want to talk about that here. I merely make the point to say that, if two persons were eight feet apart, and one chose to run, the other could hardly have a convenient last moment stab. Consider the distance between Inigo and Count Rugen, just prior to Count Rugen's turning and running.
I also point out that accounts of battle that we have show that participants are quite able to pull back from the heat of melee as a unit, so that most large scale battles are fought by driving off the enemy, who reforms for another attack, falling back again and reforming again, giving up ground and retreating to a better position, the tide of battle turning back and forth with both sides remaining in close order and not flying apart into disarray. In fact, disarray is a sure and certain way for your force to get itself wiped out ... it is, in war, the WORST form of fighting. Two battle sides who were both in disarray would be blown to retreat, in the hopes of reforming into ranks before the other side was able, and therefore crushing the opponent.
In D&D, where the skirmishing is usually small scale, a combat between a very tough band of characters might be broken down more by small attacks by groups of 5-8 goblins, rushing in from different points of the compass, hoping to get the best opportunities from initiative, throwing a few spears, exchanging a few blows and immediately running away. Meanwhile, bowmen continue to harrass the party. Given the party tendencies for heavy armor, it would reduce their opportunities to chase down these goblin groups. Before, the party could have killed three goblins every time they turned to run away ... but no longer.
Most of all, this does not happen in the space of twenty minutes, but in the space of twenty hours ... said goblin harrassers jumping forth just long enough to force the party to keep awake, themselves sleeping and resting in shifts, while the party gets more, and more tired. Until the party is feeling the characteristics of forced march.
So that a high-level party which could usually handle 60 goblins in a stand-up fight finds themselves wittled down bit by bit, getting more and more freaked out as the damn, bloody goblins won't ... leave ... them ... alone!
Their only hope is to find a defendable place, hopefully with a source of water - or even better, the sight of civilization, before it's too late!
Monday, November 29, 2010
Wiki, November 29, 2010
Listing off the things added to the wiki this last week:
A table for Dice Combinations.
The cities files for the Kingdom of the Habsburgs, the Archbishopric of Mainz and the House of Nassau.
A table for the effects of armor on movement.
A description of my Bard character.
A considerable expansion to the first Biology Table.
And maps for the Yenisey basin, the Angara basin, the Upper Lena basin, the English Channel and Germany. Don't get too excited. All of these maps fall in the category of not finished ... and in the case of England, maps not even started. But I decided when I started this that I'd just go ahead and show the partially done work along with the completed ... the Germany map, though only 2/3rds finished, still represents a terrific amount of work of which I am proud.
I hope the above links provide some interest.
A table for Dice Combinations.
The cities files for the Kingdom of the Habsburgs, the Archbishopric of Mainz and the House of Nassau.
A table for the effects of armor on movement.
A description of my Bard character.
A considerable expansion to the first Biology Table.
And maps for the Yenisey basin, the Angara basin, the Upper Lena basin, the English Channel and Germany. Don't get too excited. All of these maps fall in the category of not finished ... and in the case of England, maps not even started. But I decided when I started this that I'd just go ahead and show the partially done work along with the completed ... the Germany map, though only 2/3rds finished, still represents a terrific amount of work of which I am proud.
I hope the above links provide some interest.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Seems Like Old Times
The comments field from the last post included this observation from Zzarchov:
“As I look through my old 1e books I can't help but notice you too, are rewriting the game to be more perfect. With new charts and tables, and new rules (such as the trampling rules I heartily absorbed into my games as they were brilliant). Your game may have D&D as a base, but it has moved quite far from D&D.”
I’ll forego the bile and venom today (as a snake, I need at least a week to build up a good charge) and focus instead on what I do retain from AD&D. Remember, I’m not an OD&D fan…I embraced the DMG and Player’s Handbook as primary works when I was a teenager.
First off, classes. There were eleven classes (including the bard) in the Player’s Handbook, and I play my world with eleven classes. The only significant change has been to the bard, which was presented in the PH as an ‘optional’ class. For most of the time I’ve been playing D&D, I did not include the bard, because the way its written in the book is, well, stupid. But for two years now I’ve been playing my upgraded bard, which the player’s seem to like.
The rules from the remaining classes remain pretty much untouched, although minor additional abilities have been added (such as sage knowledge or cantrips), from either my own ideas or from the Unearthed Arcana. It is the UA that gives tables for character backgrounds … my own character background tables are merely more complicated. The classes, and their material contribution to the game, remains unchanged.
No, I don’t play with alignments. Many people don’t. Not playing with alignments hardly dismisses my game from being called D&D.
Virtually every spell that was written for the Player’s Handbook is used in my world. Two are not – nystul’s magic aura, because it’s silly (yes, I know there are uses for it, but after applying those uses two or three times they’re old hat – there’s no place for the spell in an extended campaign), and read magic ... because I presume every mage knows how to read magic. Why does it need to be a spell? It would be like an engineer being asked to comprehend calculus.
Beyond that, they're all there - cleric, druid, mage and illusionist. Tweaked a bit, but fully recognizable. I've accepted a lot of spells from the Unearthed Arcana, which needed a lot more tweaking, but a few were just dumb.
Races included - all of them. Exactly the same that were introduced in the PH. I have explored other races, but I never found any of them added anything special to the game.
Psionics? Nope, don't use 'em. Again, under optional rules. Used them for years, but again, they just offered lucky individuals special benefits, which upset the game's balance. Haven't missed them.
That about covers the Player's Handbook. I extend multi-class to humans, I don't use weapon damage against L-sized creatures, I don't use the weapon modifiers against armor class ... but I do use the same weapons, all of them. A long sword still does 1-8, a short sword still does 1-6, a morning star still does 2-8.
Which brings us to combat. Now, I have change the order and the timing for when attacks occur, and the effects of those attacks (which I call stunning), but the weapons are still swung in the same old way. A d20 is still rolled, still modified by strength and dexterity according to the books, it still hits with the same chance according to the 'to hit' tables in the DMG ... and if magic, it retains the same bonuses. Grenade-like missiles are handled in the same way, as is surprise, penalties for using more than one weapon at a time, invisibility detection and saving throws. I've lightly modified the cleric turning table to make it a touch harder for clerics, but it still works the same way. Experience points are still awarded (though differently), still applied to characters as always, and still causing players to go up levels. I don't use the training rules, but that doen't preclude my game from being D&D either.
All the magic, every single piece, is still part of my game. I have never removed a single item from the table. I have added very, very few items of my own, since really I believe there are enough items there already. The biggest change has been additional kinds of weapons and armor with bonuses.
The money is still gold, silver and copper. I don't use platinum because no one in history ever did (there are problems with it), and electrum makes no sense because virtually every coin in history was a mix of metals, particularly silver and gold. But the coins still get rewarded as treasure, they still get used to buy stuff, and the stuff is still available in the local towns.
The monsters are the same, too. Again, tweaked here and there, more hit points, sometimes causing more damage, but hobgoblins are still affected by their standards, goblins still ride worgs, treats still crush, demons still gate, dragons still cast spells and so on. It's fully recognizable as a monster-filled campaign, whatever my peculiar political organizations, or complex social structures. If you cast people out for being innovative in their worlds, none of us are playing D&D.
So I am a bit confused. The same characters, the same monsters, the same weapons, the same d20 rolls to hit, the same treasure, the same hack, slash and haul away the loot potential, mixed with the same roleplaying strategies. I don't deny I have changed lots and lots of rules ... but most of those rules have been to ADD to AD&D (poetry), not change the fundamental policies of the game itself.
Finally, a personal word Zzarchov; I don't know if I'm writing all these rules to make the world more 'perfect' ... it's a word I wouldn't ever use. Let's use 'organic' instead. That's better than 'realistic,' too - which people condemn me for being. Organic implies that modifications are there to make the world a living, breathing thing.
If there's anything that we as children used to think of when we were playing in our sandboxes, it was that all the little trucks and cars and tiny people walking around the mounds and tunnels of our worlds were ALIVE. That is my intention. To bring D&D alive. I don't need perfection.
'Breathing' will do nicely.
“As I look through my old 1e books I can't help but notice you too, are rewriting the game to be more perfect. With new charts and tables, and new rules (such as the trampling rules I heartily absorbed into my games as they were brilliant). Your game may have D&D as a base, but it has moved quite far from D&D.”
I’ll forego the bile and venom today (as a snake, I need at least a week to build up a good charge) and focus instead on what I do retain from AD&D. Remember, I’m not an OD&D fan…I embraced the DMG and Player’s Handbook as primary works when I was a teenager.
First off, classes. There were eleven classes (including the bard) in the Player’s Handbook, and I play my world with eleven classes. The only significant change has been to the bard, which was presented in the PH as an ‘optional’ class. For most of the time I’ve been playing D&D, I did not include the bard, because the way its written in the book is, well, stupid. But for two years now I’ve been playing my upgraded bard, which the player’s seem to like.
The rules from the remaining classes remain pretty much untouched, although minor additional abilities have been added (such as sage knowledge or cantrips), from either my own ideas or from the Unearthed Arcana. It is the UA that gives tables for character backgrounds … my own character background tables are merely more complicated. The classes, and their material contribution to the game, remains unchanged.
No, I don’t play with alignments. Many people don’t. Not playing with alignments hardly dismisses my game from being called D&D.
Virtually every spell that was written for the Player’s Handbook is used in my world. Two are not – nystul’s magic aura, because it’s silly (yes, I know there are uses for it, but after applying those uses two or three times they’re old hat – there’s no place for the spell in an extended campaign), and read magic ... because I presume every mage knows how to read magic. Why does it need to be a spell? It would be like an engineer being asked to comprehend calculus.
Beyond that, they're all there - cleric, druid, mage and illusionist. Tweaked a bit, but fully recognizable. I've accepted a lot of spells from the Unearthed Arcana, which needed a lot more tweaking, but a few were just dumb.
Races included - all of them. Exactly the same that were introduced in the PH. I have explored other races, but I never found any of them added anything special to the game.
Psionics? Nope, don't use 'em. Again, under optional rules. Used them for years, but again, they just offered lucky individuals special benefits, which upset the game's balance. Haven't missed them.
That about covers the Player's Handbook. I extend multi-class to humans, I don't use weapon damage against L-sized creatures, I don't use the weapon modifiers against armor class ... but I do use the same weapons, all of them. A long sword still does 1-8, a short sword still does 1-6, a morning star still does 2-8.
Which brings us to combat. Now, I have change the order and the timing for when attacks occur, and the effects of those attacks (which I call stunning), but the weapons are still swung in the same old way. A d20 is still rolled, still modified by strength and dexterity according to the books, it still hits with the same chance according to the 'to hit' tables in the DMG ... and if magic, it retains the same bonuses. Grenade-like missiles are handled in the same way, as is surprise, penalties for using more than one weapon at a time, invisibility detection and saving throws. I've lightly modified the cleric turning table to make it a touch harder for clerics, but it still works the same way. Experience points are still awarded (though differently), still applied to characters as always, and still causing players to go up levels. I don't use the training rules, but that doen't preclude my game from being D&D either.
All the magic, every single piece, is still part of my game. I have never removed a single item from the table. I have added very, very few items of my own, since really I believe there are enough items there already. The biggest change has been additional kinds of weapons and armor with bonuses.
The money is still gold, silver and copper. I don't use platinum because no one in history ever did (there are problems with it), and electrum makes no sense because virtually every coin in history was a mix of metals, particularly silver and gold. But the coins still get rewarded as treasure, they still get used to buy stuff, and the stuff is still available in the local towns.
The monsters are the same, too. Again, tweaked here and there, more hit points, sometimes causing more damage, but hobgoblins are still affected by their standards, goblins still ride worgs, treats still crush, demons still gate, dragons still cast spells and so on. It's fully recognizable as a monster-filled campaign, whatever my peculiar political organizations, or complex social structures. If you cast people out for being innovative in their worlds, none of us are playing D&D.
So I am a bit confused. The same characters, the same monsters, the same weapons, the same d20 rolls to hit, the same treasure, the same hack, slash and haul away the loot potential, mixed with the same roleplaying strategies. I don't deny I have changed lots and lots of rules ... but most of those rules have been to ADD to AD&D (poetry), not change the fundamental policies of the game itself.
Finally, a personal word Zzarchov; I don't know if I'm writing all these rules to make the world more 'perfect' ... it's a word I wouldn't ever use. Let's use 'organic' instead. That's better than 'realistic,' too - which people condemn me for being. Organic implies that modifications are there to make the world a living, breathing thing.
If there's anything that we as children used to think of when we were playing in our sandboxes, it was that all the little trucks and cars and tiny people walking around the mounds and tunnels of our worlds were ALIVE. That is my intention. To bring D&D alive. I don't need perfection.
'Breathing' will do nicely.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Poring
Far be it for me to admit that I read Grognardia. I hate that site, I hate its popularity and I really, truly hate the sort of dribbling, smug bullshit that falls off of the guy's fingers whenever he types about the 'direction' of RPG hobbies or D&D in particular. But this week I have been hard up for material to write about, I haven't been able to spend time researching anything deep, and I'm honestly in the mood to write a rant. And since the industry-pandering Grognard is always a good source when I'm in this mood, I did go to his site this morning and, predictably, I did find something to rant about. Namely, this little gem:
There's a pretty sweet shot at yours truly. I just helped launch a site (really, the IT-genius Carl did the actual work) deliberately to accomplish exactly that, wasting my time slapping together stale, nested tables that clearly have jack shit to do with real D&D ... not that I need the big G to tell me that this is so. I have dozens of people to do that for me.
Yes, it's true. I have spent hours, days, even years poring over the rulebooks for D&D, and for quite a few other games, and over books at the library, at films and documentaries ... at anything, in fact, that will help me run this game BETTER. It is a quest for me, it is art, it is sex. So fuck G and anybody else who finds this behavior doesn't fit with their perception of what D&D should be for them.
Now, maybe that's my overreaction to his statement. It's the 'definitely' that really cuts close to the bone, I think. Fine, not his cup of tea, ho hum, I wonder what's in the paper today? He's making it clear that it's definitely not his cup of tea ... implying it shouldn't be mine, or anybodys. And I'd like to know why.
(Oh yes, I know, he's not really implying it, he's using that pandering it-could-go-either-way kind of language that exempts him from responsibility, but fuck that, this is a rant)
At this point I'm going to crumble a bit and provide a link; believe me, it's like shit in my mouth to send any readers his way, but here's the post the quote comes from. To this point I have read through the text twice, and I will be honest ... I still don't know what he's talking about. I do get a sort of old D&D is old and out of date and people aren't playing it any more kind of blah, blah, blah rhetoric, calling for some other game(?) to motivate the masses towards some kind of ecology(?) of players who would accomplish ... what, I don't know. At that point I'm asleep on my desk.
I do know that there won't be any groundswell of culture started by people who feel too much poring over books is definitely not the way to go. Which might be why the community has managed to remain in its infancy these past forty years ... because the drum is still in the hands of people banging away at the message, "Rewrite the Game, Rewrite the Game," in expectation of the glorious day that shall come when a perfect rule set shall be written for a perfect game that shall unite the masses and bring in the sheep to play. Yes, dear folks, all we need is some sort of new game that shall inspire All, and end once and forever the in-fighting and bickering. Then the new players that come shall truly be blessed. All praise the game. Let it be proclaimed throughout the land, not tables but faith!
Uh ... yeah.
Strawman argument? Not hardly. I'm reading an awful lot into G's post, lots he didn't put there, and I'll admit that heartily. I'm reading into it a lot of other posts, from a lot of other people, and pulling it together into one song. It's not that I care what G's position is ... I just want an excuse to bitch about things I'm getting tired of hearing.
Namely, that original D&D was an awful game, that people who play it are obviously morlocks who have yet to see the light, and that those of us who stubbornly cling to old ideals along the lines that hacking and slashing is kind of fun are obviously retarded. After all, if we were capable of seeing the light, we'd be playing non-dice roleplaying games like the grown ups, right?
And those of us uselessly wasting our time problem-solving the game by painstakingly building up tables and employing them, to settle arguments at the table ... well, we're only misguided fools. Our insistence that D&D can be more complicated without damaging the flow of gameplay is delusional ... because it can't be done. People who have not done it, who can not do it, who have no interest in trying to do it, have said so.
Yes, gentle reader, the word is in. D&D is out of fashion (again) and pretty soon no one will be playing it (like before). We'll be playing video games, or absolutely something that isn't played with pencil and paper, because those things are dead and gone, don't you know?
Well, maybe I am wasting my time barfing out tables about monsters and cities and trade, but it is my time to waste. I have players who all play video games like addicted freaks, who come to my table because they'd rather use a pencil, whenever my game is available. If I ran my world more often, they'd come more often. And I have this ridiculous blog, in which I talk exclusively about AD&D, stupidly thinking people want to read about that. I'm such a violent, pathological character that I'm constantly amazed I have more than two followers, but yet I go on with my poring and my table-making just as though it's the right thing to do. As I have been doing for 31 years, 11 weeks and 2 days. I feel ashamed that I have wasted my life in this way, and wasted thousands of hours of other people's lives, giving them something to do on Friday and Saturday nights. How foolish of me to do that. Particularly in this worthless, dying game ecology, so vaguely described by the most popular pundit in this community.
Maybe I should see the light and quit.
"... These are the guys who like to spend hours poring over their rulebooks looking for the perfect combination of abilities for their characters and who think that nothing less than dozens of nested, cross-referenced encounter charts containing hundreds of entries is sufficient to create a 'realistic' campaign world. That's definitely not what I want in a RPG..."
There's a pretty sweet shot at yours truly. I just helped launch a site (really, the IT-genius Carl did the actual work) deliberately to accomplish exactly that, wasting my time slapping together stale, nested tables that clearly have jack shit to do with real D&D ... not that I need the big G to tell me that this is so. I have dozens of people to do that for me.
Yes, it's true. I have spent hours, days, even years poring over the rulebooks for D&D, and for quite a few other games, and over books at the library, at films and documentaries ... at anything, in fact, that will help me run this game BETTER. It is a quest for me, it is art, it is sex. So fuck G and anybody else who finds this behavior doesn't fit with their perception of what D&D should be for them.
Now, maybe that's my overreaction to his statement. It's the 'definitely' that really cuts close to the bone, I think. Fine, not his cup of tea, ho hum, I wonder what's in the paper today? He's making it clear that it's definitely not his cup of tea ... implying it shouldn't be mine, or anybodys. And I'd like to know why.
(Oh yes, I know, he's not really implying it, he's using that pandering it-could-go-either-way kind of language that exempts him from responsibility, but fuck that, this is a rant)
At this point I'm going to crumble a bit and provide a link; believe me, it's like shit in my mouth to send any readers his way, but here's the post the quote comes from. To this point I have read through the text twice, and I will be honest ... I still don't know what he's talking about. I do get a sort of old D&D is old and out of date and people aren't playing it any more kind of blah, blah, blah rhetoric, calling for some other game(?) to motivate the masses towards some kind of ecology(?) of players who would accomplish ... what, I don't know. At that point I'm asleep on my desk.
I do know that there won't be any groundswell of culture started by people who feel too much poring over books is definitely not the way to go. Which might be why the community has managed to remain in its infancy these past forty years ... because the drum is still in the hands of people banging away at the message, "Rewrite the Game, Rewrite the Game," in expectation of the glorious day that shall come when a perfect rule set shall be written for a perfect game that shall unite the masses and bring in the sheep to play. Yes, dear folks, all we need is some sort of new game that shall inspire All, and end once and forever the in-fighting and bickering. Then the new players that come shall truly be blessed. All praise the game. Let it be proclaimed throughout the land, not tables but faith!
Uh ... yeah.
Strawman argument? Not hardly. I'm reading an awful lot into G's post, lots he didn't put there, and I'll admit that heartily. I'm reading into it a lot of other posts, from a lot of other people, and pulling it together into one song. It's not that I care what G's position is ... I just want an excuse to bitch about things I'm getting tired of hearing.
Namely, that original D&D was an awful game, that people who play it are obviously morlocks who have yet to see the light, and that those of us who stubbornly cling to old ideals along the lines that hacking and slashing is kind of fun are obviously retarded. After all, if we were capable of seeing the light, we'd be playing non-dice roleplaying games like the grown ups, right?
And those of us uselessly wasting our time problem-solving the game by painstakingly building up tables and employing them, to settle arguments at the table ... well, we're only misguided fools. Our insistence that D&D can be more complicated without damaging the flow of gameplay is delusional ... because it can't be done. People who have not done it, who can not do it, who have no interest in trying to do it, have said so.
Yes, gentle reader, the word is in. D&D is out of fashion (again) and pretty soon no one will be playing it (like before). We'll be playing video games, or absolutely something that isn't played with pencil and paper, because those things are dead and gone, don't you know?
Well, maybe I am wasting my time barfing out tables about monsters and cities and trade, but it is my time to waste. I have players who all play video games like addicted freaks, who come to my table because they'd rather use a pencil, whenever my game is available. If I ran my world more often, they'd come more often. And I have this ridiculous blog, in which I talk exclusively about AD&D, stupidly thinking people want to read about that. I'm such a violent, pathological character that I'm constantly amazed I have more than two followers, but yet I go on with my poring and my table-making just as though it's the right thing to do. As I have been doing for 31 years, 11 weeks and 2 days. I feel ashamed that I have wasted my life in this way, and wasted thousands of hours of other people's lives, giving them something to do on Friday and Saturday nights. How foolish of me to do that. Particularly in this worthless, dying game ecology, so vaguely described by the most popular pundit in this community.
Maybe I should see the light and quit.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Wiki, November 22, 2010
Bit by bit, I do make the effort to add something to the wiki every day. Here are the most recent additions:
A table indicating Encounter Actions according to intelligence.
Stubs for three tables that will eventually be a sprawling mess of information: a biology table, a table for details about monster presence prior to encounters, and a table for types of encounter behavior.
Three maps: Upper Volga, Central Urals and the Ob-Irtysh river confluence.
More coming throughout the next week.
In other news, my friend Carl is no longer posting at Three Hams Inn ... so I am removing that link from my blog.
A table indicating Encounter Actions according to intelligence.
Stubs for three tables that will eventually be a sprawling mess of information: a biology table, a table for details about monster presence prior to encounters, and a table for types of encounter behavior.
Three maps: Upper Volga, Central Urals and the Ob-Irtysh river confluence.
More coming throughout the next week.
In other news, my friend Carl is no longer posting at Three Hams Inn ... so I am removing that link from my blog.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Handling Your Failings
 |
| "Scrag the brat." |
The story ran that we were stuck on a thickly populated planet with a low tech level, corresponding to present-day Earth. We could see that the Referee was trying to keep us under his thumb for a few runnings ... but I'd learned the way to get around this Ref was to think completely out of the box, especially by doing anything shocking. It tended to throw him off his even keel, so that he he would think less practically about ways to stop our plans.
We needed money. So we kidnapped an elementary school. We secured the doors, rounded up the little brats in the gymnasium and shot a few seven-year-olds to show the others we meant business. When the army arrived to surround the school and bring us our money, we killed everyone in the gym with some grenades and shot our way out.
There is no way we should have lived. But since the Ref spent most of that session with his jaw hanging open, not believing we were actually willing to scrag kids, it was easy to manipulate the session to get our money, buy a ship and get off planet.
That's what I remember most about playing that campaign ... getting around the DM. We were 17, in our last year of high school, and that seemed the most important thing. The best way to win was to steal more than the DM was offering. To force him (it was never a 'her', not then) to give more than he wanted, because it was logical.
Logic, of course, defined by the better argument.
There are things 17-year-olds don't think about, such as what the actual approach the army would have taken, or how the planet would have been shut down afterwards ... they haven't had enough experience not to get thrown by the events and to concentrate, instead, on the likely response.
I have played, naturally, with people who have tried to get around me - and once upon a time, they succeeded regularly. Now, a little less often, but still I make mistakes about giving too much treasure, too much power, or too many concessions, when I should probably kill the players instead. I think every DM who has played for a length of time can remember, with embarrassment, things they have let players get away with that should never have happened. A magic item which was far too powerful. Friends with far too much influence. A situation escaped far too easily. It happens. No matter how dearly you hold the sandbox motif, sooner or later your judgment is going to get skewed in a particular instance and you'll find yourself regretting it.
The typical DM reaction is to find ways to snatch back that item, or that monstrous pile of coins that should never have been given, typically by some trumped up circumstance which invariably leaves the players feeling bitter and cheated. I don't recommend this.
I have found from experience that there are only two practical, worthy responses:
A) Suck it up. You fucked up as a DM, they've gotten their haul and now you're just going to have to remain stoic through the next score of sessions. Don't whine, don't even admit you've made a mistake. No matter how lame the proceedings, you so best to hold your tongue and act as though this was your intent all along. Chances are, your players will be happy even if you are not, the money will run out, the item will get lost of its own accord when the player does something legitimately stupid, circumstances will change and so on. If you work harder to keep things on a tougher course in future, the players will look back fondly on those heady days when coin was plentiful and the whole incident's flaws will be forgotten - even by you, the DM. You can't fix it, you can only swallow it down and move on.
B) If the error is so HUGE, so obvious, so obtrusively destructive to your campaign, talk to the players not as a DM, but as a person. "People, I'm deeply sorry, I'm a fuck up, I should never had given all of that treasure, I should have insisted that you fight your way out, and I didn't. Please, for the sake of the campaign, I need everyone to sacrifice their gold and magic items - we'll mark it up to a dream, and in future I promise to do better."
Believe it or not, this works. If you present it very reasonably, you have the benefit of the player's knowing that yes, they've gotten something they didn't deserve, and in fact they have a feeling themselves that it is too much. They may make a joke or two at your expense, and they have a right to do so; you fucked up. I have endured many a jibe, some of which are still made years later, as in, "If I had that vorpal blade now ..." When this gets said, I remember point A and I suck it up, I grin, I make some suggestion that there's a vorpal blade somewhere, and the matter is dropped. All in all, a very reasonable arrangement for a situation I created, that I had to uncreate.
To emphasize, you achieve nothing as a DM if you try to uncreate that situation through divine intervention. Too much intervention is what created the mess in the first place. Your players tried to manipulate you with their sad, puppy dog eyes, wanting only to go up a level and feel powerful, and you fell for it. You bypassed the system for their sakes, or you built a system that was far too generous in the first place. Confess your failings, right them outside of the game format and start with a clean slate.
It's the only way, if you want players to show your world any loyalty. Talk straight with them, and they will play straight with you.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Identify Yourselves
Damn, I love statistics. And since I have some to play with, namely the stats for the new Wiki website ...
Because so few people are looking, I have this very rare oppotunity to ask who out there is viewing the site.
From Canada:
Collingwood, Ontario
Edmonton, Alberta
Vancouver, B.C.
Port Coquitlam, B.C.
London, Ontario
From the U.S.:
Denver, Colorado
Kings Mountain, North Carolina
Sewell, New Jersey
Bellevue, Washington
Dorset, Vermont
Washington, D.C.
Littleton, Colorado
New York, New York
Middletown, Connecticut
Meriden, Connecticut
Newbury Park, California
Cranberry Twp, Pennsylvania
El Paso, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Irving, Texas
Corvallis, Oregon
Midlothian, Virginia
Abilene, Texas
Rossville, Georgia
San Rafael, California
Edmonds, Washington
From Europe:
Lynn, U.K.
Reykjavik, Iceland
Ely, U.K.
Winchester, U.K.
London, U.K.
Riga, Latvia
Anyone care to answer? I'm just curious.
Update: near misses (possible remote connections) highlighted in yellow; definite hits highlighted in green.
Because so few people are looking, I have this very rare oppotunity to ask who out there is viewing the site.
From Canada:
Collingwood, Ontario
Edmonton, Alberta
Vancouver, B.C.
Port Coquitlam, B.C.
London, Ontario
From the U.S.:
Denver, Colorado
Kings Mountain, North Carolina
Sewell, New Jersey
Bellevue, Washington
Dorset, Vermont
Washington, D.C.
Littleton, Colorado
New York, New York
Middletown, Connecticut
Meriden, Connecticut
Newbury Park, California
Cranberry Twp, Pennsylvania
El Paso, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Irving, Texas
Corvallis, Oregon
Midlothian, Virginia
Abilene, Texas
Rossville, Georgia
San Rafael, California
Edmonds, Washington
From Europe:
Lynn, U.K.
Reykjavik, Iceland
Ely, U.K.
Winchester, U.K.
London, U.K.
Riga, Latvia
Anyone care to answer? I'm just curious.
Update: near misses (possible remote connections) highlighted in yellow; definite hits highlighted in green.
Wiki, November 18, 2010
Hopefully, there will be updates every day, and eventually I'll settle down and only list them once per week. But I feel quite boisterous at present.
Here are the updates from the last two days.
James has added some House Rules, Spell Fatigue and Magical Mishaps.
I've added some additional cities lists, for Bavaria, Bohemia and Brandenburg. And I have added an upgrade to my Mass Effects table.
Looking over my computer files last night, I've determined that a great deal of what I want to post needs serious reworking in order to be comprehensive and valuable to the player. If nothing else, I feel the wiki is going to be helpful in pressuring me to finally tidy up many tables which, for years, have really only been half useful since they have always been half done. At the moment, most of what I can post easily here is fairly dry, but technical material I've developed for my trade tables and mapping ... things that needed to be exact in order for them to work.
As well, I'll have to stretch myself to work on projects I've long since given up on or done no work on for years, such as treasure and encounter tables.
UPDATE:
Some of you may have noticed that certain maps failed to link properly on the wiki: specifically, that of Lithuania-Poland, the Baltic Sea, and the Lower Yenisey. Thank you Anthony for pointing this out. Those links have been fixed.
Here are the updates from the last two days.
James has added some House Rules, Spell Fatigue and Magical Mishaps.
I've added some additional cities lists, for Bavaria, Bohemia and Brandenburg. And I have added an upgrade to my Mass Effects table.
Looking over my computer files last night, I've determined that a great deal of what I want to post needs serious reworking in order to be comprehensive and valuable to the player. If nothing else, I feel the wiki is going to be helpful in pressuring me to finally tidy up many tables which, for years, have really only been half useful since they have always been half done. At the moment, most of what I can post easily here is fairly dry, but technical material I've developed for my trade tables and mapping ... things that needed to be exact in order for them to work.
As well, I'll have to stretch myself to work on projects I've long since given up on or done no work on for years, such as treasure and encounter tables.
UPDATE:
Some of you may have noticed that certain maps failed to link properly on the wiki: specifically, that of Lithuania-Poland, the Baltic Sea, and the Lower Yenisey. Thank you Anthony for pointing this out. Those links have been fixed.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Gaming Definitions And The Idiocy Of Scholars
My friend James of A Dungeon Master's Tale has an excellent post about tabletop D&D not being a 'transitional technology.' I encourage the gentle reader to have a look.
In the post, James quotes the dictum of French sociologist Roger Caillois, in his book Games and Men. For my own convenience, I'll quote the items again of what games "must be":
1. fun: the activity is chosen for its light-hearted character
2. separate: it is circumscribed in time and place
3. uncertain: the outcome of the activity is unforeseeable
4. non-productive: participation does not accomplish anything useful
5. governed by rules: the activity has rules that are different from everyday life
6. fictitious: it is accompanied by the awareness of a different reality
I have no problems with 2, 3 and 5. These are technical considerations of where, for what purpose and how the game is played. 6 is a bit more contentious, since I don't believe every game insists upon the awareness of a different reality - some games, such as releasing humans and hunting them for pleasure, are a bit too real. But we'll go with the old adage that if someone gets hurt, it's a sport, and in any case we speaking of D&D so I have no real issue with number 6.
But 1 & 4 ... ah, that's another matter.
Now, I am not here to say that D&D is not fun. It obviously is. My sessions are accompanied by laughter, boisterous shouting, playfulness and all the elements of a children's schoolyard.
Mind you, that's all the elements ... including fury, vociferous disagreement, sulking and boredom. So there are very definitely moments that occur in the game that are not 'fun.' People care very deeply about their characters, they are very involved in the success of their strategies and in staying alive, and sometimes they are very definite about the dice not working out the way they please. So I am wondering ... when the game isn't 'fun,' is it still a game?
Well, obviously. And the argument will be made, no doubt, that in some way all that adrenaline is part of the 'fun.'
But I can't find any definition anywhere for fun that includes "occasionally very pissed off and angry due to temporary circumstances resulting from frustration while having a good time."
Now, I'll keep this example as short as I can. In the battle last week against the petrifying-gaze catoblepas I threw against the party, one of the players had both his main character and his henchman turned to stone. He missed both saving throws by one point. Both by one point exactly. He was not pleased. He did not yell, he did not sulk, but he was very definitely NOT enjoying it.
Despite his stoic outward appearance, however - and I thought he was handling it quite well, as being in a dungeon it means he won't be part of the 'fun' for an indeterminate time to come - the rest of the party was not satisfied with his calm, stiffened exterior (ba-dum-dum). They spent a good twenty minutes of the session encouraging him, with his girlfriend in particular telling him not to sulk, when he wasn't actually sulking ... and that led to a nagging argument and a long, difficult period of psychological adjustment for everyone. I got up, made a cup of coffee, browsed around for something to eat and eventually, we settled down to play out the rest of the combat.
This, as anyone knows who plays regularly, is typical. People are emotional. And where danger threatens, even fictitious danger, people get upset. They don't always have fun. Sometimes, they're turned to stone.
But when the next session begins, you can bet your ass the player is going to be present, stone characters in hand, ready to play the second someone finds the inevitable stone-to-flesh scroll that logically ought to be found in a lair where a catoblepas is kept as a pet. I mean, the pet's owner just has to be prepared for this sort of thing.
Maybe for a whole lot of people, the game is just fun fun fun all the time, and nothing really serious ever happens. But my memories of hopscotch and scrub include - when I think of it - fights over where the little stone landed and where the pitcher was supposed to stand. I remember fistfights broke out over stuff like that. Yet we all wanted to play, most of the time. Maybe not with certain people, like that bastard Brad I knew who tried to whack me with his bat when I said it was his fourth foul and he chose to ignore that house/playground rule we always played by. Brad took his bat and went home and it took us a week to find another. Fun times.
I think it has to be said that with games, fun is a desired outcome, but not an attribute. We can all remember playing some game, somewhere, when we were more concerned with humiliating our opponent than having fun: "I'm gonna practice this goddamn game until I wipe the board with that bastard's ass, and when I do, I'm going to LAUGH right in his fucking face."
Maybe those are not the highest ideals to play by, but it doesn't make the game cease to be a game. Definition-wise, fun doesn't mean shit.
Now, as regards number 4 ... "A game does not accomplish anything useful."
Really. I mean, that's actually part of the definition? Because I am baffled. In the first place, given the number of people who accumulate income via the playing of games, it seems pretty useful in some cases to having more money in my pocket. I've done pretty well at poker over the years, and I have occasionally hurt a few sharks at nine-ball. In the non-fiscal sense, I've seen fame accumulated by others who've done well in competitions, and in one case I know for a fact that led to the rather nerdish fellow getting laid by a very hot chick. Benefits of the game.
But then, perhaps we really are talking only within the exact framework of the game. That is, peripheral benefits aside, the actual knocking down of the pins did not accomplish anything specifically useful to the existence of the pins or the ball.
To make that definition work, it means that I have to ignore the physical benefit that bowling gives to my body, or the social enjoyment of watching others bowl and talking about it, the relief of my stress in most cases that likely increases my overall life expectancy and so on. But then, maybe bowling is a sport, whereas dice rolling is not.
I would argue that the difference is just in the size and exact physical properties of the thing you throw, but okay, let's just stick to throwing dice. Yet I'm still having to discount the moderate burst of seratonins in my system, making me high upon tossing a d20, in order for this to fit the above's definition of a game. Sorry, I find that little rush 'useful' to my state of consciousness, as being high on stuff that isn't actually illegal drugs is sort of my purpose for being.
I can't help it that our sociologist Caillois can't find that in his list of 'useful' things, but tough tookies. What Caillois really means in his definition of useful is that it doesn't fit into what would be catalogued as part of industrial production. It's a waste of time, as opposed to my job or the raising of children, those being reactionary judgments about what's useful and what isn't. The definition is extremely cursory, ridiculously weak in its foundation and utterly dismissive that anything pleasurable can also be useful. It is typical of academicians that, in order to insist that a game is an escape from the daily grind of paycheque living, it must by definition be useless.
This only gives credence to that facet of the population that looks at the pleasurable activities of its citizens, feeling free to define this activity as productive and therefore exploitable by the ruling class, and that activity as useless and therefore unimportant in the grand scheme of things. To hell with that. D&D may not yet be something useful to French sociologists, but it is very much useful to me.
Which means that either D&D isn't a game, or sociologist Roger Caillois has his head up his ass. You tell me.
In the post, James quotes the dictum of French sociologist Roger Caillois, in his book Games and Men. For my own convenience, I'll quote the items again of what games "must be":
1. fun: the activity is chosen for its light-hearted character
2. separate: it is circumscribed in time and place
3. uncertain: the outcome of the activity is unforeseeable
4. non-productive: participation does not accomplish anything useful
5. governed by rules: the activity has rules that are different from everyday life
6. fictitious: it is accompanied by the awareness of a different reality
I have no problems with 2, 3 and 5. These are technical considerations of where, for what purpose and how the game is played. 6 is a bit more contentious, since I don't believe every game insists upon the awareness of a different reality - some games, such as releasing humans and hunting them for pleasure, are a bit too real. But we'll go with the old adage that if someone gets hurt, it's a sport, and in any case we speaking of D&D so I have no real issue with number 6.
But 1 & 4 ... ah, that's another matter.
Now, I am not here to say that D&D is not fun. It obviously is. My sessions are accompanied by laughter, boisterous shouting, playfulness and all the elements of a children's schoolyard.
Mind you, that's all the elements ... including fury, vociferous disagreement, sulking and boredom. So there are very definitely moments that occur in the game that are not 'fun.' People care very deeply about their characters, they are very involved in the success of their strategies and in staying alive, and sometimes they are very definite about the dice not working out the way they please. So I am wondering ... when the game isn't 'fun,' is it still a game?
Well, obviously. And the argument will be made, no doubt, that in some way all that adrenaline is part of the 'fun.'
But I can't find any definition anywhere for fun that includes "occasionally very pissed off and angry due to temporary circumstances resulting from frustration while having a good time."
Now, I'll keep this example as short as I can. In the battle last week against the petrifying-gaze catoblepas I threw against the party, one of the players had both his main character and his henchman turned to stone. He missed both saving throws by one point. Both by one point exactly. He was not pleased. He did not yell, he did not sulk, but he was very definitely NOT enjoying it.
Despite his stoic outward appearance, however - and I thought he was handling it quite well, as being in a dungeon it means he won't be part of the 'fun' for an indeterminate time to come - the rest of the party was not satisfied with his calm, stiffened exterior (ba-dum-dum). They spent a good twenty minutes of the session encouraging him, with his girlfriend in particular telling him not to sulk, when he wasn't actually sulking ... and that led to a nagging argument and a long, difficult period of psychological adjustment for everyone. I got up, made a cup of coffee, browsed around for something to eat and eventually, we settled down to play out the rest of the combat.
This, as anyone knows who plays regularly, is typical. People are emotional. And where danger threatens, even fictitious danger, people get upset. They don't always have fun. Sometimes, they're turned to stone.
But when the next session begins, you can bet your ass the player is going to be present, stone characters in hand, ready to play the second someone finds the inevitable stone-to-flesh scroll that logically ought to be found in a lair where a catoblepas is kept as a pet. I mean, the pet's owner just has to be prepared for this sort of thing.
Maybe for a whole lot of people, the game is just fun fun fun all the time, and nothing really serious ever happens. But my memories of hopscotch and scrub include - when I think of it - fights over where the little stone landed and where the pitcher was supposed to stand. I remember fistfights broke out over stuff like that. Yet we all wanted to play, most of the time. Maybe not with certain people, like that bastard Brad I knew who tried to whack me with his bat when I said it was his fourth foul and he chose to ignore that house/playground rule we always played by. Brad took his bat and went home and it took us a week to find another. Fun times.
I think it has to be said that with games, fun is a desired outcome, but not an attribute. We can all remember playing some game, somewhere, when we were more concerned with humiliating our opponent than having fun: "I'm gonna practice this goddamn game until I wipe the board with that bastard's ass, and when I do, I'm going to LAUGH right in his fucking face."
Maybe those are not the highest ideals to play by, but it doesn't make the game cease to be a game. Definition-wise, fun doesn't mean shit.
Now, as regards number 4 ... "A game does not accomplish anything useful."
Really. I mean, that's actually part of the definition? Because I am baffled. In the first place, given the number of people who accumulate income via the playing of games, it seems pretty useful in some cases to having more money in my pocket. I've done pretty well at poker over the years, and I have occasionally hurt a few sharks at nine-ball. In the non-fiscal sense, I've seen fame accumulated by others who've done well in competitions, and in one case I know for a fact that led to the rather nerdish fellow getting laid by a very hot chick. Benefits of the game.
But then, perhaps we really are talking only within the exact framework of the game. That is, peripheral benefits aside, the actual knocking down of the pins did not accomplish anything specifically useful to the existence of the pins or the ball.
To make that definition work, it means that I have to ignore the physical benefit that bowling gives to my body, or the social enjoyment of watching others bowl and talking about it, the relief of my stress in most cases that likely increases my overall life expectancy and so on. But then, maybe bowling is a sport, whereas dice rolling is not.
I would argue that the difference is just in the size and exact physical properties of the thing you throw, but okay, let's just stick to throwing dice. Yet I'm still having to discount the moderate burst of seratonins in my system, making me high upon tossing a d20, in order for this to fit the above's definition of a game. Sorry, I find that little rush 'useful' to my state of consciousness, as being high on stuff that isn't actually illegal drugs is sort of my purpose for being.
I can't help it that our sociologist Caillois can't find that in his list of 'useful' things, but tough tookies. What Caillois really means in his definition of useful is that it doesn't fit into what would be catalogued as part of industrial production. It's a waste of time, as opposed to my job or the raising of children, those being reactionary judgments about what's useful and what isn't. The definition is extremely cursory, ridiculously weak in its foundation and utterly dismissive that anything pleasurable can also be useful. It is typical of academicians that, in order to insist that a game is an escape from the daily grind of paycheque living, it must by definition be useless.
This only gives credence to that facet of the population that looks at the pleasurable activities of its citizens, feeling free to define this activity as productive and therefore exploitable by the ruling class, and that activity as useless and therefore unimportant in the grand scheme of things. To hell with that. D&D may not yet be something useful to French sociologists, but it is very much useful to me.
Which means that either D&D isn't a game, or sociologist Roger Caillois has his head up his ass. You tell me.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The Cleric's Choice And The Paladin's Dilemma
I did eventually settle on a solution for resurrection and raise dead, in answer to the problems presented in this post. Rather than ban either spell, impose restrictions on their use, impose penalties on the players or any of the other suggestions, I went an entirely different route and lowered the cost of the spells. This was, after all, my actual problem - that players would be able to make hordes of money by sitting on their butts casting their new raise dead spell at 9th level. I did not actually have any problem whatsoever with the presence or benefit of the spell.
While lowering the cost does mean that the players do not need to give an arm and a leg to get raised (which was actually one literal suggestion), the overall availability of raise dead means that unless the party happens to be in a fairly heavily populated area, chances are the spell won't be available. Not because a cleric won't give it, but because there is no cleric of sufficient level around.
Once, when running a party 20 years ago, they found themselves in the Caribbean after numerous adventures, a major character died and there was no civilization at all. Nor was it likely they were going to be returning to Europe any time soon. So the party carefully cleaned up the character's skull of meaty bits, mounted it on a staff and had the cleric carry it around for the next eight months of real time (I was running once/week, so about 30 gaming sessions) before it could be resurrected. They paid heftily, and the player succeeded at his resurrection survival roll. Good times.
Anyway, for me, the problem is solved. A lot of the time the party won't find a cleric in raise dead's time frame, and pay more for the higher spell ... and meanwhile, they themselves won't produce a 16th level cleric for some time.
It occurs to me that a 16th level cleric is such a rare thing in my world that the pressure to use the spell upon only worthy people will be very great. I do impose a rule that you must be of the cleric's religion gain the benefit of certain clerical spells, but not for healing spells: cure light wounds, remove paralysis, remove blindness, dispel magic, cure serious wounds, neutralize poison, raise dead, restoration, heal, resurrection and so on ... any spell, in fact, that does not require the recipient to believe anything. The reverse of all these spells work on non-believers ... why not the good as well?
Where faith matters happens when the spell requires a belief from the recipient. Bless, for example, gives a +1 to hit as a matter of believing the bless has effect. The same goes for chant or prayer. Aid, which is not a healing spell, but the addition of extra hit points, is also a blessing, as is any spell that empowers a recipient. Atonement requires a willingness to believe.
Others might interpret the spells differently, but I'm not concerned with that; this is how I do it in my world.
Where it really makes a difference in day-to-day affairs is the party's paladin. The 10' radius protection, and the lay-on hands, only extends to those who are the same religion as the paladin - i.e., have formally been baptised or otherwise indoctrinated into the religion. And once your player has been, there is a certain responsibility put on the player - cleric and non-cleric alike - in return for that bonus 2 AC (or any other benefit).
(Yes, I do require the same religion for the paladin to heal ... it is a different kind of healing, and does require faith)
Now, it so happens that I am running a mage in my daughter's world, who is about to become 3rd level. I am looking forward to 5th, when I will receive a henchmen - she plays the same rules as me. And it is my plan to roll a cleric.
The party is divided, religiously. The paladin and the druid in the party are Celtic. The fighter, thief and illusionist are Roman Catholic. I am the only undeclared member.
The player who runs the paladin rolled a spectacular character: four 17s. Strength, Constitution, Dexterity and Charisma ... with high rolls for Intelligence and Wisdom besides. He is a formidable powerhouse, and is now moving steadily towards fourth level. If I play the sort of cleric I plan to play, namely an aggressive authoritarian with delusions of divine infallibility, and I pick Roman Catholic, the paladin and my cleric will eventually go toe-to-toe. Which is fine, the cleric only has to endure for two or three rounds for my mage to rip the paladin a new asshole. (of course, he's reading this right now and wondering if he should let my mage live to be 3rd).
Alternately, I could choose to be Celtic. This, I think, could be very interesting, because it provides my character with some immunity regarding the paladin. Gods do not look with great love upon paladins who destroy clerics of their own religion. Kill me, and be a fighter forever.
Of course, this all depends on how thoroughly I play the cleric character. I feel I have a good sense for the dramatic, the screaming of "For Manannan!" as I crush skulls with my mace, the gentle influence of giving alms to hundreds as I enter towns, the patient assassination of hated catholic clerics and the steady anarchy I encourage by converting not the resident humans, but the dispossessed orcs and half-orcs of the nearby hills. After all, Celtic gods are less preachy about racial purity. It might be interesting to have the paladin not as an enemy, but as a puppet, dancing on my string of religious agenda, marching ahead of said wretched denizens of the dark to destroy a hated Gothic church.
Mwah hah hah.
And once again, the paladin is reading this, wondering if I should be allowed to live. But this post is really only written for his benefit. There are things a paladin must contend with, and annoying, pious clerics are the worst.
While lowering the cost does mean that the players do not need to give an arm and a leg to get raised (which was actually one literal suggestion), the overall availability of raise dead means that unless the party happens to be in a fairly heavily populated area, chances are the spell won't be available. Not because a cleric won't give it, but because there is no cleric of sufficient level around.
Once, when running a party 20 years ago, they found themselves in the Caribbean after numerous adventures, a major character died and there was no civilization at all. Nor was it likely they were going to be returning to Europe any time soon. So the party carefully cleaned up the character's skull of meaty bits, mounted it on a staff and had the cleric carry it around for the next eight months of real time (I was running once/week, so about 30 gaming sessions) before it could be resurrected. They paid heftily, and the player succeeded at his resurrection survival roll. Good times.
Anyway, for me, the problem is solved. A lot of the time the party won't find a cleric in raise dead's time frame, and pay more for the higher spell ... and meanwhile, they themselves won't produce a 16th level cleric for some time.
It occurs to me that a 16th level cleric is such a rare thing in my world that the pressure to use the spell upon only worthy people will be very great. I do impose a rule that you must be of the cleric's religion gain the benefit of certain clerical spells, but not for healing spells: cure light wounds, remove paralysis, remove blindness, dispel magic, cure serious wounds, neutralize poison, raise dead, restoration, heal, resurrection and so on ... any spell, in fact, that does not require the recipient to believe anything. The reverse of all these spells work on non-believers ... why not the good as well?
Where faith matters happens when the spell requires a belief from the recipient. Bless, for example, gives a +1 to hit as a matter of believing the bless has effect. The same goes for chant or prayer. Aid, which is not a healing spell, but the addition of extra hit points, is also a blessing, as is any spell that empowers a recipient. Atonement requires a willingness to believe.
Others might interpret the spells differently, but I'm not concerned with that; this is how I do it in my world.
Where it really makes a difference in day-to-day affairs is the party's paladin. The 10' radius protection, and the lay-on hands, only extends to those who are the same religion as the paladin - i.e., have formally been baptised or otherwise indoctrinated into the religion. And once your player has been, there is a certain responsibility put on the player - cleric and non-cleric alike - in return for that bonus 2 AC (or any other benefit).
(Yes, I do require the same religion for the paladin to heal ... it is a different kind of healing, and does require faith)
Now, it so happens that I am running a mage in my daughter's world, who is about to become 3rd level. I am looking forward to 5th, when I will receive a henchmen - she plays the same rules as me. And it is my plan to roll a cleric.
The party is divided, religiously. The paladin and the druid in the party are Celtic. The fighter, thief and illusionist are Roman Catholic. I am the only undeclared member.
The player who runs the paladin rolled a spectacular character: four 17s. Strength, Constitution, Dexterity and Charisma ... with high rolls for Intelligence and Wisdom besides. He is a formidable powerhouse, and is now moving steadily towards fourth level. If I play the sort of cleric I plan to play, namely an aggressive authoritarian with delusions of divine infallibility, and I pick Roman Catholic, the paladin and my cleric will eventually go toe-to-toe. Which is fine, the cleric only has to endure for two or three rounds for my mage to rip the paladin a new asshole. (of course, he's reading this right now and wondering if he should let my mage live to be 3rd).
Alternately, I could choose to be Celtic. This, I think, could be very interesting, because it provides my character with some immunity regarding the paladin. Gods do not look with great love upon paladins who destroy clerics of their own religion. Kill me, and be a fighter forever.
Of course, this all depends on how thoroughly I play the cleric character. I feel I have a good sense for the dramatic, the screaming of "For Manannan!" as I crush skulls with my mace, the gentle influence of giving alms to hundreds as I enter towns, the patient assassination of hated catholic clerics and the steady anarchy I encourage by converting not the resident humans, but the dispossessed orcs and half-orcs of the nearby hills. After all, Celtic gods are less preachy about racial purity. It might be interesting to have the paladin not as an enemy, but as a puppet, dancing on my string of religious agenda, marching ahead of said wretched denizens of the dark to destroy a hated Gothic church.
Mwah hah hah.
And once again, the paladin is reading this, wondering if I should be allowed to live. But this post is really only written for his benefit. There are things a paladin must contend with, and annoying, pious clerics are the worst.
Wiki, November 16, 2010
For awhile, I'm going to float on the work I'm adding to the Wiki, updating here daily. After awhile I hope to be less exhuberant, updating what I've added weekly. But for the time being, I hope the gentle reader will forgive.
Today's Page and it's Mother.
Today's Page and it's Mother.
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