Core Monk Abilities

I have decided to retain four "core" abilities for the monk class that all monks possess and improve in, regardless of what sage abilities they've chosen to pursue.  These are armor class, number of attacks, open hand damage and number of proficiencies.  Here's a breakdown for the 17 levels that a monk can attain:

I wrote on Friday that back in the 1980s I had adjusted the monk's starting natural armor class from the Player's Handbook "10" to "8."  Now I'm adjusting it again, to "9," to create an ability for monks who want to concentrate on defense (they can improve the armor class listed on the table above by 1 point or even 2).

The AD&D rules have always limited the monk's weapon attacks to 1 per round.  I'm making adjustments to the weapon damage bonus in the PH (and making it a different sage ability), so now I can improve the number of times a monk hits per round with a weapon.  The list given is, in fact, the number of attacks a fighter can perform per round ~ so the monk is not better than the fighter in this regard.  But as I said in my last post, the monk is a fighter, so this is fair.

The open hand attacks per round are higher; this is intentional, as I prefer the monk to turn to their open hand rather than concentrate on weapons.  This, I have found in the past, is something that happens automatically as the open hand damage increases.  I hope that additional open hand/martial arts abilities that I will add with the sage abilities will encourage players to consider non-weapon attacks sooner.

Finally, proficiencies.  Monks are limited to staves, jo sticks, bo sticks, clubs, daggers, hand axes, javelins, pole arms, spears and crossbows.  The non-proficiency penalty for a monk is -3 to hit.

The Monk's Nature

I am nearly at the point where I'm ready to start coughing up abilities.

At several points there has been some discussion about, as Maliloki put it, "world-building" monk abilities: social skills, knowledge of history or literature, animals, plants, etcetera.  The original Player's Handbook had monks talking to animals and plants, for example.  We're used to tropes where monks are able to talk to birds or sense the emotional status of the surrounding natural landscape.  The Chinese term "jianghu," which describes the hermit-like nature of the monk, means literally "rivers and lakes."  This would seem to suggest a druidic root to the monk's background.

However, just as I mean to consider the monk a universal class and not one based on Eastern mythology, the druid is also a universal class and not based on Western mythology.  The descriptions of jianghu will apply as well to druids as to monks.  Druids are also hermits.  Druids can also manipulate qi.

As such, I want these classes distinguished from one another.  I rush to point out that there are three other means by which a monk can gain skills as a cultivator, a social climber, a scholar or any one of the sage abilities ascribed to the other classes:

• First, the monk can have parents that possessed these skills and gave them to the monk.  This is part of my background generator.  It presumes you grew up around your father, that you gained his skills as a young child, and that today you're able to act upon those skills.  Since farming is a very common thing for your father to have had as an occupation, this explains all the western monks who have formed colonies to cultivate vinyards and farms.  Too, a monastery only needs one "farmer."  The rest of the participants will learn to farm as they spend their years tilling and tending the plants.  There's no need to create a sage study that will cover something that can be done as a virtual laborer.
• Second, the monk may have the opportunity to cross-train due to their high wisdom.  This, too, is part of the background generator.  It is a random chance, but if it is gained by the correct roll against the character's wisdom, the character can take any study from any class and include it in their own sage abilities.  Thus, some monks will have history, alchemy or literature in their knowledge base, as well as a potential knowledge of plants, animals or anything else.  We have to ask the question, do all monks need this as part of their class construction?
• Finally, the monk may choose to be multi-classed.  I know this isn't acceptable in the player's handbook but I have no limitations on mixing classes, whether a character is human or any other permissible race.  Therefore, a character can be a cleric-monk, a druid-monk, a paladin-monk, a mage-monk or what have you.  This means a full slate of sage abilities from the alternate class, so that many monks who have chosen more than one class would be well versed in druidic, clerical, magical or bardic fields of pursuit.

Remember that eventually the monk, as it improves, gains ALL the amateur studies associated with the class.  As they get really high level, they'll get all the authority levels for all the classes as well.  Are all monks musicians?  Alchemists?  Historians?  I don't believe that they are or that they should be.  I want the monk class to be distinct and not watered down with a lot of abilities that really ought to be the domain of other classes, that shouldn't in turn have to compete with the monk.  The druid should feel that the druid is the center of attention where plants and animals are concerned.  The monk should be the center of attention where focus on the body as a unique and profound fighting style is concerned.

Like recently where I have begun treating the assassin as one of the fighter class, I feel that the monk, too, is properly a "fighter."  Not a spellcaster and not a thief.  I have chosen to strip most of the thieving abilities from the monk, with the exception of stealth and climbing.  Likewise, I have also chosen to strip those abilities that are magical in nature, such as avoiding magical damage or speaking with plants and animals.

The monk is properly a creature that has spent so much time concentrating on the methodical training necessary to accomplish the monk's feats that they are virtually unschooled where it comes to the outside world.  This, too, is a trope ~ and I believe the more definitive one.  It is true that a monk is always cast as someone with wisdom (mostly Kant-derived wisdom, but hey, it's the movies and television), but the bigger  descriptor is someone who just doesn't "get" the world.  "Why do ordinary people act so strangely?"  This is written on the face of every monk who finds that they are cast out into the world.  This is just as true with the European monk as it is with the Asian.

So I intend to cripple the monk by making them the best fighter and combat artist in the game ~ but the worst social component in a party.  Not uncharismatic, necessarily, but not the character with the answers about how this bridge works or what rocks are these, what is the local law here or can I mend a pair of shoes.  For these things, I want my monk to be surprised, confused, and unsure about how to react.

Do look at the comic below.  I will have a new one when Saturday begins.

E3

Qi

I feel I'm getting steadily closer to a monk sage ability structure ~ I do not think there is going to be anything like the sort of leap that pulled together the bard, but the bard really did lack any meaning or connection to the idea of adventure whereas the monk does not.  We have all grown up on Chop Sockey in one form or another.  We're comfortable with the way of the loner warrior who challenges authority and adventures into the heart of darkness.

Before we can talk about that structure, however, I feel I should address the matter of qi.  I can't imagine an educated, present-day RPGer not knowing what this is, but I've linked it.  Apart from its association with martial arts, qi derives from the much older concept of atman, which is fundamentally the breath entering and leaving the body.  Stop, take a breath, and imagine that you have no modern concept of what is happening to the body (because we are going back thousands of years in human knowledge).  The emotional sense you have as breath enters, how a deep breath will seem to expand your consciousness, your energy, giving you life, filling you with the essence of the universe (as the source of the breath comes from outside the body) ~ that is atman.  It possessed a mystical quality that any person alive can experience, IF the effort is made to clear the mind and concentrate on the purely physical experience.

It is this experience that seems to give evidence that there must be gods, there must be a greater force in the universe outside ourselves, not because everything was made by something but because we are right now being kept alive by this force.  Breathing is life.  The absence of breathing is death.  This clear distinction is universal.

Qi, too, is defined as breath, or more figuratively as "material energy."  The body functions more powerfully as the amount of oxygen that can be taken in and burned off increases, so that martial arts focuses on breathing in order to strengthen the body and prolong endurance.  The imagination then carries this forward to where a body immensely strengthened can perform seemingly impossible feats, even magic, merely through comprehensive and committed training of the body.

Qi is almost perfectly designed for point-buy systems where the amount of qi can be measured and spent according to how much you have and what you wish your character to do.  A good example of this (and one I can find that everyone can read) is Palladium's Mystic China.  In it, the character calculates their "chi points," then spends tem according to what the character wants to do.  I hate this sort of system, but I appreciate the work behind this particular rule set ~ and I'll be stealing from it without hesitation.  I'll go through the book with a fine toothed comb, get rid of the chi buys, then redesign the abilities so that they are toned down and made into something that won't unbalance my game.

I have no interest in limiting the monk through any point system ~ though it has been recommended to me through the years.  I intend to limit it the way all the classes are limited; though the monk is going to be tricky.

In the early levels, a character will gain that one amateur study that will enable them to do a few things.  This will be limiting.  But I have found that by the time a character reaches 6-8th level, they are typically an amateur in everything, even outside their fields.  This is because the character gets 1d4-1 points (an average of 1.5) per level even in the unchosen studies.  1.5 x 6 is 9.  10 points are needed for becoming an amateur, so that by 7th the average for every study makes it better than average that the character will acquire that study.

The path from 1st to 7th level is, then, a rapid accumulation of very minor abilities, which as a group can be quite beneficial.  In creating those abilities, this must be kept in mind.  An amateur ability cannot be very important, else a whole pile of them will greatly overbalance the challenge needed to make the game work!

We don't expect the players to have a core set of super-powers and be ignorant about everything else.  We expect the character will have a core set of super-powers AND have a fair knowledge about everything else.  Trying to manage something like this with a point-buy system would be crazy.

Conversely, there are also games where a character has "positive" qi and "negative" qi, obviously confusing the concept of qi with karma.  My recent post about monks being evil was intended to emphasize that I won't be playing with any of that, either.

Therefore, I have no intention of making either qi or karma into game elements.  Qi would just be another version of the crummy point-buy system that created munchkins with 3rd edition, whereas karma is just another version of alignment.  Neither have any place in my game.  I felt I should make that clear.

Comments

"You cannot make change someone who doesn't want to change."

Familiar words.  Words that would seem to imply that change is difficult to obtain, that we should surrender the effort and recognize that it is up to ourselves to change.  We must leave others to change themselves.

My contention with this is that most everyone I've met in my life wants to change.  Most everyone is unhappy with their choices, most everyone would like to make different choices.  They just don't know how.

This doesn't mean they'll listen to me, or the reader, or any specific person.  It does mean that the option is there, that is it possible, even likely, that with the right message, the right set of plans, the right delivery, that we can not only make one person change, we can make hundreds, thousands, even millions of people change.  We have evidence of others who have done exactly that.

This is a very alluring prospect.  As such, there are many who aspire to it.

I have also found in my experience that most of those who do not want to change, ever, are precisely the same people who greatly aspire to change others.  Some of this is so that they can tailor their universe to themselves, some of this is because they are terrifically deluded into believing they really have all the right answers and that it is their duty to show others.  Mostly, however, it is because these people lack self-awareness.

Self-awareness is the ability to look at oneself from a perspective outside one self.  When I write, it is not enough to write what pleases me.  I must look at every word from the perspective of someone who is reading this, who is made interested by it or incensed by it.  I have to make decisions about what sort of reaction I want.  I must couch my phrases and words with the awareness that I am speaking to persons other than myself, who have experiences I do not have, who are knowledgeable about things I do not know, who have the power and the will to stand up and correct me.

If I don't want to spend all my time being corrected, I have to BE correct.  I don't mean I have to sound correct or delude myself into believing that I am correct.  I mean that I need to speak in terms that ring true.  I may speak opinion, but it must be an opinion that others are prepared to adopt.  This is a difficult thing.  It is an impossible thing for anyone who are, themselves, unable to change.

Such persons cannot comprehend the adoption of someone else's principles, of someone else's beliefs.  They must have, once, but those days are past.  They are far too immersed in their present world view . . . and being immersed, they must challenge everything that threatens to compromise that world view.

Now, this certainly sounds like me.  Very often, I seem to lash out at those who appear to disagree with me, or who present a point that is at odds to statements I defend.  And I am often accused of immobility, of "always having to be right," of browbeating others when they dare to raise a voice against me.

Except that I don't.  I am disagreed with all the time and I welcome it.  Often, as some will defend, I change my point of view completely, often on a dime.  Often, I embrace the Greek practice of debate, as I feel that Western civilization is founded upon the principal of attack and defend, until the truth is known.  It does not matter if this goes on for eternity; where opinion is the only evidence for a thing (and it often is), then the dialectic is the only weapon we have in which to acquire knowledge.

More precisely, I find myself angered by insignificance.  Pedantry.  Personal bias.  The need to pick apart semantics or to fail to look past a single word to see the whole picture.  The assumption that a first impression is ever accurate.  Or that it needs commenting upon.

I identify this habit with trolls.

Lately, I have been fooling with moderating comments.  I took off the moderation about two months ago, without fanfare.  Last week, having acquired a troll, I said I was returning to it.  In fact, I never put it in place.  I wanted to see what would happen.

I do not want to put the moderation back in place.  This leaves me with two options:

One

I can delete troll posts as I have for the last five years; but it means that you, the gentle reader, will see me doing it.  And some of you will disagree with my decisions.  This will mean that I am subject to your criticism for it, as I have no intention to ask anyone to "trust me."  The dialectic must apply here, too.

Two

I can let the troll posts stand.  I truly do not like this option.  Trolls prefer to derail conversations into their own bias, meaning that the value of the comments sections of my posts will ultimately prove valueless to the reader.  As well, it will discourage many readers from answering, if they feel they are subject to the abuse of others.  It is hard enough for readers to overcome their fear of my abuse.

As well, it is the broken window problem.  One troll is annoying, but it encourages others trolls to believe that they are welcome.  As such, they proliferate.  I have had no serious trolls on this blog in years.  Eventually, knowing they would not be allowed to speak, they stopped trying.  They just went away.

Therefore, I intend to continue to delete any comment that I think derails, compromises or resists a post's theme due to purely personal bias.

Commenting on my removal is acceptable (though keep in mind the comment that is commented upon will not be there to see) so long as it, too, does not seek to derail the comments section away from the post.

If I post about monks, I expect the comments section to be about monks.  I expect the reader to expect that; in fact, I feel the reader wants to expect it, as they've enjoyed the post and now they'd like a little bit more.  So let's keep the comments on topic.  Let's keep them relevant.  Let's be scholars and not trolls.

The Monk's Four Fields ~ Sorta

As I turn the monk over and over again in my thoughts, I find myself settling on the same four fields of endeavor, all of which were mentioned in the previous post.  I have no name for these.  I don't want to use either Chinese nor modern designations, which seems to leave out everything.  But that said, we have this:

• Hostile or forceful action, fighting, combativeness or aggression: those abilities that apply directly to attack and damage, either in terms of how the fighting is done or how effective it is at reducing an enemy.
• Resistance to the above, defensiveness, resiliance: those abilities that sustain the monk against the enemy, from hit points to saving throws, avoiding attacks or the reduction of the damage taken.
• Consciousness of the self, things that apply to the body and mind of the monk: healing, meditation, inducing catalepsy, limitations, patience, equilibrium, fearlessness and fortitude - it is what causes monks to be deliberate enough to take careful actions, such as moving stealthily, that others cannot.
• Awareness of the universe, that which applies to everything else, consciousness of all that is happening: that which keeps the monk from being surprise, that which makes the monk able to see the world as a construct rather than a sense of physical laws, as these laws can be broken (completely stolen by many films, not just the first one that the reader thought of just now).

I've been dissatisfied with the above, however, because they seem so murky ~ but also because they lack sub-categories, which I need to make the sage system work.  Every field has a group of studies, and every study has a group of abilities.  It's all well and good to say that a monk can scale the corner of a wall in three jumps like Jackie Chan, but what study does it fit in?  What other abilities does that study include?  What makes it distinct from other studies?  And does it belong in Consciousness, which enables the power to come from within, or does it come from Awareness, knowledge the world's laws can be overcome with training?  Perhaps it is resistance, as it is certainly a defensive movement in a crisis.  How do we know?

It is the categorization here that is the struggle.  Not what abilities does a monk have, but how do we separate them out so that we limit the players at low levels to just these abilities and not those.  We're not going to give the player everything.  Especially since "everything" will include a lot more than was conceived of in the original book, just as I have done for the other classes.

The Wuxia page from wikipedia has a useful list, which I will reorganize without the least respect to the original page (so the reader better follow the link if a legitimate list is wanted).  I am thinking only of my game, not a faithful representation of actual Wuxia.  Using the Chinese names:

• Zhaoshi: real life Chinese martial arts, using a variety of weapons, intending for attacking the enemy and causing damage, but obviously also for defense and resistance against attack.
• Qingdong: the physical capacity to exaggerate ordinary human limitations, enabling monks to circumvent gravity, fly, possess impossible balance and bring force to bear without the need of a solid platform from which to strike.
• Neigong: internal skill and function, to possess superhuman strength, speed, stamina, durability, healing, control elemental forces, dodge or catch arrows and thrown weapons, break stones and bricks, shadow-blending, chasing down a horse, this sort of thing.
• Dianxue: the use of super-precise attacks to kill, paralyze, stun or even manipulate characters by targeting their acupressure points with bare hands or weapons.  These techniques can be used to halt wounds, relieve pain, remove fear or restore consciousness.

This is a more precise list, but it is heavily weighted towards Neigong, whereas it would be better if the four fields had more balance (that is, the "power" field wasn't immediately obvious).  The second proposed list gives a better idea of what the studies might be, however ~ so if it were possible to somehow mix the first list of four fields with the second list, then come up with meaningful, somewhat game cool-sounding field names, I think I could start working on a list of studies and thereafter abilities to fit under those studies.

This is as far as I've gotten in my thoughts so far.

Monks Can Be Evil

Picking up the monk again.  I think I've been overlooking an important cultural perspective, that being Wuxia.  This is the centuries old tradition of martial arts warriors roaming the breadth and length of China, fighting evil, pursuing romance, overcoming horrible childhood tragedies and following the codes of loyalty, honor and duty.

I don't mean to say that those codes are something that should matter to the players.  I have been opposed to "appropriate behaviour" for a given class since it was first put in place for the paladin, thereafter becoming a major set piece of the corporate game forever after.  If you want to play a cavalier, a barbarian or whatever, you must behave according to these precepts that absolutely deny you any freedom of will or purpose.  It has always been nonsense, no matter how many people like the code.  Codes, even in the real world, can always be broken ~ and it never ends in losing our knowledge or our ability.

This is, in fact, a fundamental conflict in Wuxia: that the evil master in the story is just as capable, just as dangerous, as the honorable master.  In the stories, for the protagonist to win, there must always be some other thing that compromises the evil master: a minion of the evil master, a helper of the honorable master, circumstance . . . and most commonly someone sacrificing their lives in order to win.  Most often, the evil master is killed at the cost of the honorable master, producing a zero-sum gain that is treated as a bittersweet victory.  Yes, Li Mu Bai is dead, the romance is shattered, but the evil has been stopped.  Everyone else may now live in peace.

I have no interest in restraining any character in my world with such melodrama ~ if they want to pursue it, that's fine, I'll create that adventure and give it the nuance it needs.  But that has to be a player choice.  Wuxia likes to teach that the ambitious master must always be taught in the end that true satisfaction demands a quest of peace, love, family or the simple life, lived simply.  I have zero interest in that for D&D characters.  As monks wandering the world, having adventures, they should not be held back, but allowed to act as they will.

It is my role to give them their abilities, not to dictate how those abilities should be used.

This is why I hesitate to pursue things like the monk eschew attachment and gaining pleasure from the real world.  That is a trope. That is not the freedom to adventure.  The literature is full of proof that monks can be evil, that they can still be tremendously able yet interested in acquisition and power.  Just because the stories all insist that these people must die in the end doesn't mean role-play has to work that way.

Players should be free to be as evil ~ or as good ~ as they personally desire, without paying an penalty regarding their ability whatsoever.  The danger comes from combat against the other, not the player's agenda against moral-making rule systems.

E2

The Monk

At last, the monk.

Each time I plunge into one of these sage abilities posts I feel self-conscious.  I'm know I'm writing about something that certainly applies to only my world, so that for the gentle reader these posts are merely academic.  Many have said some wonderful things, expressed their support, and I am grateful.  Yet this is still seems a voyage that I strike out upon alone.  I wrote many posts about the bard, struggling that out, with a lot of good advice and help from others.  Now I mean to do the same thing with the monk.

That is because I am even less clear about the structure underlying the monk than I was about the bard.  The monk is a functional mess.  It is a splatter mess of martial arts, religion, eastern mythology and game mechanics.  It is part cleric, part thief, part spellcaster, with an unclear agenda and a murky social status within the D&D game world.

For the most part, I've been able to ignore that.  Monks are hard to roll and are usually not taken when the rolls are sufficient.  Since the year 2000 my campaigns have included only three of them.  And only one is active right now.

So what is it?  What defines the monk?  Rather, how do we want to define it.  I'm just not sure.  I will interject here and say that the monk has always been my favorite character.  In terms of combat prowess, I think it holds its own.  But I'd like to give the class a motivation that doesn't depend upon any one culture's honor code or martial arts discipline.  Why?  Because that presses the monk into existing as a stereotype that has to fulfill a cliched game role.  I'd rather my players felt they could design their own monk, their way, without needing to be buddhists, ninjas or some other form of Oriental stock character.

Let's start with how the original player's handbook defined the class.  The monk wasn't allowed to gain strength benefits from the 15 or better strength the monk had to have, or armor class bonuses from the 15 or better minimum dexterity.  This was a way to limit the class.  The character started with a 10 AC that improved as levels were gained, so very slowly.  The character had 2d4 hit points, a little better than a cleric. We used to apply constitution benefits per hit die, so if the monk had a constitution of 15+1, the +1 was applied to each die 4.

The monk also got "open hand," which meant causing damage with the open palm, matching the kung fu martial art that was popular in the 1970s, the way of the open hand.  If the monk scored 5 or more higher on the attack die above what was needed to hit (against humanoid opponents), then the opponent was "stunned" for 1-6 rounds, effectively knocked unconscious.  As well, the monk got a +1/2 hit point bonus per level to damage caused with hand-to-hand weapons.

The monk also got a saving throw as a defense against missile weapons, had thieving abilities (except pick pockets), a very slight, steadily improving chance to not be surprised (-2%/level) and, starting with third level, a series of other abilities that included speak with animals, falling from various distances without taking damage, minor healing and, ultimately, the infamous "quivering palm" that would enable the monk to outright kill someone by touching them once reaching 13th level.

I remember the monk was pitifully weak back in the early 80s, something that had been noticed by others.  There was a Dragon magazine article about the monk that made some suggestions, some of which we adopted for my campaign at the time.  Specifically two: we raised the starting AC to 8, then had it progress at the same degree per level, just 2 better than the book stated; and we changed the hit dice to a d6, so the monk started with 2d6.  Those two changes smoothed out the character and made it work.

Yet here I am now, bent on restructuring the monk with sage abilities.

Part of the sage ability practice is to spread the original abilities of the class around to various fields and studies, then set it up that the character doesn't start with all of those.  Clerics, for example, don't necessarily start with the ability to turn undead.  Oh, every cleric gets a watered down version of the ability, but if you don't choose dweomercraft as a study, you can't turn the really big, dangerous things.  With the sage abilities I've defined, not all thieves have a special ability to sneak up on opponents and if you don't study backstabbing, you get a watered down version of that too.  If an assassin doesn't study murder, then its a watered down version of assassination.  And so on.

So what we want is a monk that doesn't necessarily have all the abilities that the monk character does in the original game.  In turn, IF the monk specializes in one of those abilities, then they will ultimately do it better than the book states.  The sage abilities do take away, but they also give more and more.  With high level, you more or less get lots and lots.

My first problem is this.  How to take the small pile of monk abilities that existed previously, divide them up logically, then add more abilities that aren't described.  Remember, we're not talking about random chance skills, like in 3e and later editions.  We're talking the monk can absolutely do these things, with no fail possible.  Those are more difficult abilities to come up with, because we don't want to break the game.

I have a mess of ideas on that front.  What I don't have is the organization.  I can imagine fields called the path of the stick (combat), the path of the reed (defense) or the path of enlightenment (meditation) or the path of knowledge (clarity) . . . but these seem trite.  Combat and defense are easy, but meditation and clarity are difficult if we don't want to drift into religion and telling players what to think.

I've spent a bunch of time reading Buddhist texts lately and I am convinced that the earlier steps of Buddhism form a rational philosophy, but the later steps of Buddhism proceed to go right up its own ass.  I can see more clearly why there is a discrepancy about whether or not Buddhism is a religion or a philosophy. It is a philosophy . . . in the beginning.  But if you manage to convince yourself, the available option to start taking things totally on faith are right there waiting for you ~ making it no different than any other religion you must accept on faith.  It is all very disappointing after a degree . . . particularly as Buddhism has its blind, fundamental pundits just as Christianity or Islam does.

I had hoped for a path there for developing the monk, as I had stumbled across some very interesting things when I wrote my mantraism post last year.  Unfortunately, no.

So now I don't have a rational structure for the monk, not yet.  I'd like four clear, easy to define categories (fields) that would each offer a meaningful option to a player who chose to take a monk character.  Fighting, yes, with either an offensive or defensive option, along with a more religious (practical) set of skills, the meditation path, and finally a set of challenge-the-reality of the universe options, such as being able to fall without taking damage, a la Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  If I can get these fields sorted, I'm sure I can conceive of the abilities that should fit within them.

Lurkers' Corner - The Well

The Juvenis Party has figured out that the well contains water that will enable them to walk through poisonous gas and continue onwards into the dungeon.

Did anyone guess?  How long did it take.  Were you following it and I just gave it away right now?  I admit, the idea is pretty old school, not really my usual thing.  I don't like puzzles, largely because people tend to overthink them and then we're going around in circles for ages.

I try to suspend overthinking by simply identifying it when it happens or jumping ahead to produce the experiment and demonstrate it has failed.

Whenever possible, I will try to emphasize the correct solution if a player mentions it in passing, as I did in this case.  I had an NPC repeat a specific question stated by the player, and that broke the deadlock.

Am I wrong to do this?  Say so if you feel I am.  I do so because it is often necessary to make the game move forward when the players begin to feel lost.

If you haven't seen it yet, there's a comic.

E1

Don't Jog My Elbow

I think those who read this blog three years ago can agree that, on the whole, I've been a much kinder, more patient person than I used to be.  I've tried to resist the sort of ranting posts I used to write, I've gotten much better in handling trolls and I haven't had a flame war on this blog in a long, long time.

I do have my triggers, however.  We all do.  One of mine is what I'll call the new reader assumption, or NRA.  (what, that's an acronym for something else?)

The blog wants new readers, no doubt.  New readers are the bread and butter of every writer.  And it is a necessity that new readers should be welcomed, encouraged and coddled . . . as it is certain that most new readers will not have read the back-log before jumping in to comment.  All the worse when that backlog is really, really long.  A long back-log is bound to increase NRA.

It is even harder with my blog, as I tend to refer to myself with reckless abandon.  I try, rather lazily, to link to a concept I've introduced on another post, but I fail for the most part because it doesn't occur to me that the reader doesn't know exactly what I'm talking about.  That can be off-putting.

Still, every now and then an NRA pops up and I . . . well, I have to clamp down on my first response.

Let me explain what an NRA is.

It is a visitor to the Sistine Chapel having a look around while Michaelangelo is part way through and muttering, "You know what would be great here?  Something about God giving life to Man.  I bet you could get great ideas about that from my cousin Guiseppe."

It is a theatre manager looking over the first three pages of Shakespeare's as yet untitled Romeo and Juliet and saying, "Wow, this is great stuff ~ I can't wait for when Romeo gets it on with Bianca.  What a great set up you've written here!"

It is an architect showing up at the offices of Washington Roebling seven months into the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge to explain how important it is that the bridge be built four blocks to the north.  It HAS to be.

It is a kid showing up for his first day at work and taking it upon himself to spontaneously reorganize the store room, to make it better.

It is a reader who thinks they have the problems of my world solved because once they played a trade-based game in the 1980s.

It is giving an opinion without asking questions.  It is formulating without investigating.  It is a kind of arrogance, one that supposes that now that I am here, everything will be easy.

I struggle with this.  When I started on the internet, I used to do this.  Let's face it, the internet encourages this sort of behavior.  I'm glad that I've left it behind.  It is a terrible habit to fall into, particularly as it is almost impossible to correct from the designer's point of view.

Robert Heinlein had a great phrase for this.  It's the title of this post.  Sometimes, it's all we can say without screaming the fellow out of our presence.

They mean well, after all.