The Angry DM

"But, look, it’s no secret that I am not talking about your hoity-toity story games who think they are the only way to get a satisfying narrative experience in an interactive medium. And I’m not talking about those abstract as f$&% specialty games whose rules are three layers removed from any actual game fiction. I’m not talking about the elitist indie crap that seeks to elevate the medium. No, I’m talking about the standard fare. The Dungeons & Dragons. The Pathfinder. The Star Wars. The old school and the new school action-adventure games. The ones that CAN be great epic stories of mystery and intrigue, like that Game of Thrones thing the kids are all playing. And the ones that CAN ALSO be the dungeon-crawling fun of killing green-skinned evil-doers and taking their stuff. And the ones that CAN ALSO be tear-your-hair-out challenging tests of your strategy and gaming mettle. D&D can’t be anything to anyone, sorry. I’ve said that before. But it can be a lot of things. And it’s pretty easy to get to a lot of things from D&D.

"Oh, and just because I talk about traditional RPGs and play traditional RPGs, that doesn’t mean I also don’t play (and even sometimes LIKE) other games. I play and run A LOT of games. I try a lot of s$&%. Anyway, I got distracted. My point here is that this site is unapologetically about teaching you how to get the most out of traditional RPGs, however you define 'the most.' Deal with it."

The Angry GM,

The Big Picture: Everything You Ever Need to Know About Game Mastering

What I like about the above is how clear it all is.  When I read writing on this level, I come away from it nourished, refreshed and emboldened by a brand new, crystalline version of reality, as the scales fall away from my eyes and I realize, at last, what I need to know to be a better dungeon master.

"What is a Role-Playing Game?

"A role-playing game is a game in which players take on the role of fictional characters in a hypothetical universe. The players attempt to make the decisions that they feel their characters would make if they were real and if their universe were real. Those decisions are based on the characters’ motivations and the games goals. The results of those decisions are played out and new decisions are made.

"Ultimately, an RPG is about choice and consequence. The players make choices for their characters and then deal with the consequences. And goals provide benchmarks for success and failure."

 See?  If I knew nothing about RPGs, I would want a definition like this one: thorough, exemplifying a full detail and aspect of what's going on, right down to the nuts and bolts of the thing.  "Ah, I see," I would say.  The universe is hypothetical, but we pretend that the hypothetical is real.  That's brilliant!  That is completely different from most things that are hypothetical, which are merely theoretical, conjectural, speculative, putative or notional.  Thank gawd that's made clearer.

But the real genius in the above is the description of RPGs involving choices and consequences.  That is so, so very different from other types of games, activities, sports, recreations and past-times.  None of those involve choices in any way, and certainly are not subject to consequences.  This is so cool, this role-playing thing.  Tell me more.

"The Most Important Rule in Every RPG

"There is one rule, one structure, that underlies almost every RPG that exists. It is the most basic process by which the RPG runs. And it goes like this. The GM presents a situation to the players. The players project themselves into the mind of their characters and decide on a course of action for their characters to take. The GM determines the outcome of those actions and describes the results, which becomes a new situation to which the players then respond."

Wow.  A situation.  That is so deep.  As a GM, all that's needed, the most important thing that is needed, is that I need to present a situation.  Damn.  My head is just on fire with all the ideas in my head.  Don't say any more.  I get it now.  I get it all.

... sigh.

hm.

This is such a good example of a typical attempt to explain the game, I had to march it out.  Go on, read the whole post.  It doesn't get any better, it doesn't get any clearer.  The gentle reader and I understand what he's saying for obvious reasons.  We're the choir.  But someone who has never heard of a role-playing game?  The above is an empty field of useless wordage.

The above, however, has nothing at all on the comment that praise the above:

"These abstract articles are good (and necessary) but it’s watching the way you are able to use the concepts in regards to minutia and moving the little bits around that I find fascinating. Well defined examples, or vague generic ones when you’re in that mood, are exciting to follow because you can see thru the bulls&$(# that trips the rest of us up."

"It’s nice to see this clear outline of definitions. While all of these concepts have been touched on in previous articles at some level or another, putting them here in one place serves well to tie them together."

"Very concise and lays out information and concepts in an easy to follow format. You haven’t peaked, this seems like a good foundation for future published work. Great stuff here!"

"This blew me out of the water. I love the systematic way that you laid out and connected concepts from all your articles. I have a feeling that I’ll be coming back to this article for years. Well done, and thank you for all the great work you put in. I truly appreciate it."

These are Russian bots, right?  They're deliberately creating obsequious content in order to promote a lax, non-educational precept to the investigation of RPGs ... no one actually read the above post and actually felt it worthy of actual praise.  Did they?

I'm afraid that, yes, they did.

"Blew me out of the water?"  Which part, exactly?  The part where the DM wears three hats?  Where two of them were "running the game" and "administering the game"?  Because, apparently, these are different things:

"When running the game, the GM presents situations, determines the outcome of actions, and presents the consequences of those actions."

"When administrating the game, the GM handles the organizational and social aspects of the game. The GM must deal with interpersonal problems, disruption of the game, and other social issues."

Funny, because I call both those things, "running the game," because I do them both at the same time, in synchronization.

See, the baseball umpire wears two hats: he wears the game adjudication hat, and he wears the hat where he has to deal with players who respond to the game adjudication. Oh, wait, he actually wears three hats, because sometimes he calls balls and strikes, and sometimes he has to deal with all the other rules of the game.  Oh, wait, he wears four hats, because he also wears the Umpire is not involved in the Game hat.  Oops, there's five hats ... no, six ... wait, it's eight.  Or is it ten?  Fuck, that's a lot of hats.

Sometimes, as a DM, I wear my "gets out of a chair and grabs a coke" hat ... and sometimes I wear the "joke with the other participants of the game while we shoot the shit" hat.  Once upon a time, I even wore the "stops the game for five minutes while I go change the baby" hat.  RPGs are complicated.

Or maybe, what blew the reader out of the water was the 55 words used to describe "Campaign" (which doesn't even rate "The" Campaign):

"A campaign isn’t really part of the structure of the role-playing game. A campaign is the sum total of all of the game sessions involving any sort of continuity between adventures. Usually the continuity involves the ensemble of characters and the setting, but through one or more adventure paths, there may also be a story continuity."

There's a shell that goes straight for the ammunition supply.  That certainly blew my HMS Hood out of the North Atlantic.  "Any sort of continuity."  An unbroken and consistent existence of a thing over time ... of any sort.  Jeez.  That kind of stark lucidity doesn't turn up in a sentence just any day.

But okay, we were given some examples: there's character continuity and setting continuity, and one or more adventure path continuities, and story continuity.  My, my, my ... I do know everything a DM need to know about the campaign now, don't I?

Remember, that was the name of the post.  EVERYTHING you need to know.  Every blessed thing.  From now until the day you stop running RPGs when the cancer cuts you down at 95.  There are a bunch of different continuities and they all have an adjective in front of them.

When I say the RPG community has its head up it's ass, I mean crap like this sort of thing that is praised to the skies. Someone felt the need to write,

"This article is what every single dungeon master section is missing. I’ve paid money for products that have given me far less."

And someone else added:

"Ditto. Not enough DMGs or other such books really teach you to actually GM."

Now, lest I be misunderstood, I don't care that the Angry DM felt compelled to write this post.  He's been spewing out this inconsistent drivel for years.  He has a steady, consistent formula.  He starts with a long, long self-referential introduction that does little more than pick a given word in the previous sentence in order to go off on a tangent, which almost always ends with him disagreeing with something he said at the start, while obsequiously adding a few sentences to make sure hasn't unduly insulted someone by making a declarative sentence that something is something.  If you'll look at the opening two paragraphs that I quoted at the top, you'll see he's done exactly this.  If you go look at the rest of his writings, you'll find he does it virtually every time.

Of course I've read him.  He's called "The Angry GM."  I had to go find out what the fuss was about.  Truth is, he's not really angry ... except in the way that a drunk asshole on a train bridge finds a reason to scream at something, because they're there and, what the fuck, they feel like screaming.  There's no rationale.  He's not actually "angry" at anything.  He's adept at using a ten-year-old's vocabulary while letting his Mom, apparently, replace the swearing with the top row of his keyboard.

I use the symbols technique myself, occasionally.  It's fun.  But I'm also ready to say fuck and shit because, well, fuck it.  I'm guessing he uses the technique because he thinks there's a chance that mainstream television will pick him up and stream him someday, since it is the only medium still in existence (along with radio) that still gives a fuck about swearing.

My deeper issue is with the readers ... who must live in some oppressive hell where no actual light ever enters, where no academic book learning penetrates, where no documentary ever plays, where education and deliberation on a subject are perpetually hidden and who, when told to ignore the man behind the curtain, do so.

Because I would expect some fifty comments under such material to read, "What the fuck is this supposed to be" or "Are you fucking kidding?"  Yet I expect the same thing to occur when I read the comments under a Mike Mercer video or some piece of bullshit article proclaiming the death of role-playing.  Yet it never happens.

Where are the sardonic, embittered, fiery role-players of my experience, who scoff at movies and books that pander painfully to an audience of gormless gits who obviously haven't read a real book in their lives?  Where are the truly angry DMs of my acquaintance who railed for half-an-hour at the piece of shit module, wrapped in plastic, that they just forked out to buy, only to find they were nothing more than half artwork and a bad rehash of Legacy of the Drow?  Where is the anger of people who opened the post, only to find within a few paragraphs that it was nothing more than another pale, flaccid, insubstantial outline of shit that we actually Ought to Be Explaining?

Instead, there's some cheap little flame war in the comments about whether or not the DM is a player.  Like this matters in the enormity of the dearth of anything of consequence being said in an article entitled, "Everything You Ever Need to Know About Game Mastering."

The readers sicken me.  That's the truth of it. I look at those readers ... and then I compare them to the readers of this blog, whom I've flayed and insulted, whom I've belittled, whom I've mistreated and coldly misunderstood, and I get down on my hands and knees and kiss the fucking ground that you people exist and are tough enough to sustain a little abuse.  You guys are wonderful.  If I had to put up with the spineless syncophants that haunt the cloud castles of brown-colored smoke blown up, then ejected, from most of the RPG sites on the internet, I think I'd put a gun in my mouth.

Yes.  I am angry.  Not F$&%ing angry.

I am fucking angry.

The man behind the curtain.

How to Live

So here's a screen shot from a video that I just put on the blog.  The speaker is Dan Pink, who's a presenter of documentaries and writes about behavioural science.

"Let's talk about mastery ~ our urge to get better at stuff.  We like to get better at stuff.  This is why people play musical instruments on the weekend.  You've got all these people who are acting in ways that seem irrational economically.  They play musical instruments on weekends?  Why?  It's not going to get them a mate, it's not going to make them any money, why are they doing it?  'Cos it's fun.  'Cos you get better at it and that's satisfying."

I often talk about going to sources other than game makers to understand what is going on with people playing D&D and other RPGs.  This is an example.

Where I differ from most people is that I play D&D because I want to get better at it, while most claim they just want to have fun ... the two examples for motivation that Pink gives.  Part of this is because I view D&D like playing a musical instrument, while I know that many people who participate in the game view D&D like a complicated version of a boardgame, emphasis on game.  When I talk about the game, I'm not satisfied that the reader understands what a hit point is, or what a given monster does, or how a particular adventure is described.  I want the reader to "get it" ~ to have a deeper, more profound understanding that what's going on here is not players responding to rules, but human beings responding to an opportunity to explore incentives and innovation.

Let me put that another way, though I'll keep putting it another way for the rest of my life.  Many people, when they sit down to play, imagine a set of events that they have to problem solve, in order to get from a place where they are, to a place where they want to go, in a linear fashion that might have a few lateral jumps.  In effect, for most people the game is like an excursion ... whether or not they happen to be able to choose which paths they're taking.  The excursion passes through a set piece which the DM designs, which the players enjoy, and that is the basic framework for play.

I want to run a game in which a player is a person, specifically YOU, in an environment which is, intellectually, no different from the environment you are actually sitting in, in the real world.  Just as you might rise from your seat to go get a drink from the fridge, because you happen to be thirsty, I want you to feel the same general incentive to do things in my game world.  And just as YOU, the real person, could save up your money, go to India, buy a plantation, defend it against real life bandits, raise indigo, bring it back home and sell it for a profit, I want the character in my game to think, what do I want to do with my life?

And then, when you figure out what that is, just as YOU, the real person, has to figure out what that is, I want to run a game which makes that a difficult, satisfying, possible, wonderful, deeply fascinating experience for you, as you'll be doing this thing in a world of magic, weapons, monsters, treasure, the potential for world domination, etcetera, in a hundred ways you cannot manage in the real world.  I want you to LIVE in my world.  Not just game in it.

Yet when I think about game design for that system, I'm not interested in making some system that reflects or reproduces reality.  That would be impossible.  Instead, I have to use my energy to make a system that reflects and reproduces the emotional element of reality.  I don't want a system that makes sword play "realistic."  I want a system that makes the emotional fear from dying in sword play, or the emotional triumph from succeeding in sword play, or the cringe factor of bleeding out from being stabbed, or the tremulous satisfaction of smashing flesh and bone ... real.

To do that, I have to approach the game very differently from the way a simulationist might.  I can't be concerned with details that will undermine momentum.  Momentum is incredibly important where it comes to emotional impact.  I can't be overly concerned with too much bookkeeping, though I'd love to be ... so I try to build systems that make bookkeeping easy and automatic, making use of computers, excel and such, so that things can be added and calculated in the blink of an eye.  Again, because momentum matters.  My game can't be run with pen and paper.  It's too slow.  My game can't be run on a map with miniatures.  They're too slow and clumsy, and they undermine the player's identification with self.

I need the player to have access to the rules, because they need to think as fast inside the rules as I do.  I need the players to see my die rolls, so they know it's the die, and not me, that holds their lives in jeopardy.  The dice are inflexible, immutable, implacable, indifferent.  I might bend to appeal. The dice can't.  So the dice must be thrown in the open, where everyone can see them, and be subject to their results.

I need a world that can be comprehended, pictured, seen, studied, revealed and visited.  If the players are in a small town in Turkey, they should know that a Turkish town in the 17th century, with its narrow streets, lanes, houses pushed up against houses, is not like a modern town in Ohio, with isolated houses surrounded by big yards.  If they bring a horse into a village like that, I need them to understand they can't just gallop their horse around willy nilly.  This is a medieval town.  I need my players to "get that."

And I need my players to stop thinking like players.  I need them to open their eyes.  I need them to wake up and see that I'm not just giving them the excursion tour.  If they really want to enjoy the world, they have to stop visiting it and start living there.

I wouldn't need to tell them to do that, if the whole of the rest of the RPG community didn't have their head collectively up their own ass.

The Apprentice System's Yield

To be sure, the problems that some players have about entering a combat without putting their armor on first is only one aspect of a familiar attitude: the same that causes players to insist there must be scads of healing in any game system before it can be fairly run, or that death is an unfair policy carried out by DMs who apparently hate players.

If it takes too long to cast spells, so that it is difficult to fire spells off like automatic weaponry at opponents, then the wizard is unfairly crippled.  If fighters don't have enough hit points, if thieves are not able to backstab every time an enemy turns their back, regardless of surprise, if a bard can't automatically put the enemy to sleep in less than eight notes of a cheap lyre, then the game is unfair and needs to be "fixed" and reworked until the players are properly served by the rules.

I don't want to rant about this.  I do want to stress that it is a problem.  Not so much for an old grognard like me [though, as recently stipulated, occasionally] ~ but it is very hard on a DM with only a little experience.  Such new gamers are already facing a steep learning curve, which is made harder by game systems and culture which steadfastly supports more and more player power.  Just look at the videos online: fudging is pressed on DMs, in order to ensure the players have fun; the DM is flat out told that the player's enjoyment is the DM's responsibility; even the idea of TPKs are treated viciously in comment sections; while player enabling through backstories and the right to negotiate the nature of the campaign in session zeros further compromises the free hand of the DM.

This is all the linked post above, Fight Semantics, serves to investigate: the idea that armor class can be served by holding a weapon, thus reducing all the inconvenience ~ and cost ~ of holding a weapon.  Most rule proposals that I see pushed by newish DMs, or DMs who run scattered, one-off campaigns, where player power doesn't really matter, more or less push enablement in one way or another.

The finger can be pointed at me, as well: what else are the sage abilities, except more power for the players?  At least, that's how they could be interpreted, if too much leeway was given as to what sort of things could be accomplished with an ability to "brew poison" or "breed horses."  I see the sage abilities enabling the player's motivation and personality, as opposed to the player's power ... but another DM could easily be browbeat by a player looking over the list, to considerably abuse and exploit the system as written.

With all this pressure on a new DM (and players asking questions like, "Does my long sword do more damage if I swing it with both hands"), it's no wonder that moving the game onto rails is a viable strategy to reassert the DM's control over his or her game.  No doubt, philosophies like "the DM is always right" retain a vitality because of what a DM faces with more and more rules that legitimize the player's right to drive the game.

That "pressure" only exists because ~ supposedly ~ finding players is hard to do, or because standing up to a player and giving a flat out, "No" is treated as a risky choice.  Many poor souls, not realizing that a DM nixing a player's pet plan is no different than an umpire calling a strike, get themselves into far worse situations than I did with the village in my recent post.  Such DMs have to fudge, because letting the players have their way on a constant basis, trying to follow game advice that says, "Make your players feel enabled, not disabled," [my words], gets them into corners they haven't the skill to get out of.  Dungeons wind up being too feeble, or overpowered; when the players circumvent some plan, the DM feels confused and helpless; parties get overcautious; parties slaughter everything; plot hooks fail, because the DM doesn't know what the players want; the players show little or no interest in doing anything and the DM feels lost; roleplaying does a face plant, or a smart player talks the DM into everything ... and there's a constant threat the players will simply walk out if they don't get what they want.  Basically, threatening extortion.

Off record for one of the podcast interviews, I was asked to explain my support of accreditation.  My only real argument is that the game is broken ... and not because players can't use weapons to replace their armor or because an arrow can't be blocked with a sword.  The deeper issue presents within the game's play, where DMs are simply disassociated from the pre-conceived framework they've created in their own minds, which they cling to as a way of controlling a game they're clearly incapable of controlling.  Case in point:



I keep watching these videos, because they just ... don't ... make ... sense.  The DM functions in some quasi-real game space, the players just go with it, the farce is allowed to play out like a bizarre Ionesco play and a group of functionally game-retarded participants stumble through a session only to realize there's nothing out there that's better (which is a running theme in Puffin Forrest's content).


It is baffling on the surface ... but with some consideration it makes perfect sense.  The philosophy has been, for decades, whenever the rules don't cover something, the DM should make a ruling so the game can just go on.  But when DM fiat becomes less and less rational, and that irrationality is supported by a wider and wider populace, with a player-to-DM apprentice system that is all positive, all the time, the video above is what results.

I regularly get people who answer a post of mine with, "Well, I run by fiat in my game and it is just fine."  That's not a good recommendation ~ but they don't know it.  They really do think that it is "just fine" ... just as the people do who participate in the game video above.  Just as people all over the internet are increasingly feeling.  That this sort of irrationality is "fun" ... so why worry?

Playing Out

Went to a little place called the Shoebox Games and Cafe, where I did some r/l game running, the first I've done in many months.  That's me on the right.  Truth is, I haven't had a space and more to the point, I haven't had a computer.  We've been trying to set up with a regular game day for a couple of months ~ not just a single session, but actually making a commitment ~ and it finally came around.

With this group, we haven't actually played since 2016 ... so we didn't get much done, what with everyone trying to remember what their characters could do, what level they were and how the character sheets were laid out.  Still, there was still a strong commitment to playing, and to feeling the roles they had.  It is always reassuring to know that even after a year, people are still ready to sort out their free time to come back and play with me.

Long ago, I felt there was a problem keeping players, but I haven't felt that much since 1985.  If I lost every player, it was obvious I could just show up at a place like this for a number of nights, offer to run for people and build up a mob.  That's in spite of my being curmudgeonly or ~ as this page put it ~ "... super old school and grumpy about it."

Old school, yes; but perhaps that just proves I know what I'm doing, or that I'm tremendously conscious of the players at the table and what they expect.  I'm able to play two parts at the same time: to be a hard adversary against the player characters, while being empathic and supportive of the players themselves.  Perhaps I'm just ready to run.  Whether I have a story in my pocket or not.

It was a good time.  For those in the city of Calgary, who might be familiar with the Sentry Box and what a bag of snarling cats that place has become, you might try this place at the north end, near McKnight and Edmonton Trail.  They were considerate, supportive, enabled the table for the sake of our supporting the eats and drinks (no additional cost) and were very friendly.

Fight Semantics

Charles Taylor and I are going back and forth on the last post ... and it's a good discussion, I don't want to let it die.  Part of me thinks we should just get on mic and suss it out for five or ten minutes ~ which would be an interesting strategy for engaging mini-podcasts ~ but I'm going to write about it in the moment.

Basically, this is an argument that has been going around for quite a while, and is part of the "weapon simulation" rule-set vs. the "weapon game convenience" rule-set conversation.  To wit: should rules for combat in an RPG be redesigned to more closely represent reality, or should they continue to exist as a shorthand for getting the combat over with so we can get back to role-playing?

Here's Taylor's proposal, a perfectly fair one:

A fighter should be able to snatch up their sword and be able to competently defend themselves, but in D&D, your weapon has no effect whatsoever on your defensive ability. Armour is the only control over their defense the player has, so of course they're going to cling to it. They have nothing else, unlike in real life, where you defend yourself with your sword and armour is a safety net to protect you if you screw up.

I am probably closer to this sentiment than most, who still feel that the priorities of combat are a game.  I love the idea above ... that any character with weapons skill ought to be able to count on their weapon as a means to parry attacks against them, to preserve themselves, and thus rely less and less on the use of armor.  We like the notion that Robin Hood, D'Artagnan or Conan doesn't need to wear armor, because they're just that good with a sword.

Only ... most of the rule sets I've seen that try to present this ideal are cumbersome, or ultimately become a sort of guarantee that the sword swinger becomes invulnerable.  Don't get me wrong.  I like a multiplicity of rules that relate to combat ... otherwise, I wouldn't have this list of standard, regular rules that exist in my game.  And I don't want that as a dungeon master.  I never want the fear of death to go away; I want every combat to be legitimately dangerous, no matter how good a fighter a character happens to be.

My purpose for writing this post is to flesh out the reply I gave to Taylor at the end of the last post's comments ~ my argument that the weapon's defensive element is included in the old D&D combat system, just not in the way people usually think of it.

To begin with, let's take two combatants, Hichem and Jocasta, both unarmored, both 1st level.  Hichem goes to take a swing at Jocasta using a d20, needing a 10 to hit her.

Why a 10?  Why not a 1?  What is this magical force that surrounds Jocasta, that makes every roll between 1 and 9 a miss?  It isn't stated blatantly in the rules, but I think this "missing" is due to Jocasta's use of the weapon ... her weapon is 45% effective against blocking attacks made by Hichem against her unarmored body.

IF Jocasta also happens to have a dexterity above 14, this makes her even less likely to be struck by Hichem's attack.  Now, usually people describe this as Jocasta dodging Hichem's attack, but this is actually pretty unrealistic.  We don't fight by dodging.  We fight by putting our weapon in the way of the opponent's weapon.  Jocasta, because of her dexterity (let's say it is a 16, giving her a 2 pt. armor bonus), is faster at getting her sword in the way of Hichem's sword than she would be if her dexterity were, say, 12.

Now, suppose Hichem hits.  We'll say Jocasta has 10 hit points, and Hichem hits her for 3 damage.  This 3 damage is 30% of Jocasta's hit points.  Now, we can say that this represents Hichem's ability to cause damage ... but we can also say that Jocasta's ability to deflect Hichem's attack resulted in taking 30% of her total hit points.

Suppose Jocasta gained a level, and 10 more hit points, and then fought Hichem again.  And Hichem, again, hits Jocasta, again for 3 hit points.  Now, that 3 damage only counts against 15% of Jocasta's hit points.

We could say, and we usually do, that this means Jocasta can take more damage.  But that is actually a rather warped way of looking at it.  Jocasta's body hasn't changed.  Her skin isn't harder, she hasn't gained weight, there's no physical rationale for her being able to take more abuse.  However, there is a perfectly reasonable argument to be made that when the 2nd level Jocasta deflected Hichem's 3 point attack, less of the actual weapon touched her body, because she is getting better at deflecting an attack.  Where, at 1st level, Hichem's blow probably gave her a good cut, now it does little more than score her.

And if she were 10th level, and had 80 hit points, that 3 points of damage would be little more than a nick on her skin.  She is much, much better at deflecting a hit, using her own weapons' ability.

So the "competent defense" that Taylor is asking for is already inherent in the rules.  It is only that, from bad habit, we've gotten used to thinking of characters "dodging" during fights and not "parrying," just as we've gotten used to thinking of characters "taking more damage" rather than "taking a smaller percentage of their total physical integrity."

It's unfortunate that we've gone that way with semantics, but that's not a problem with the rules.  The rules do account for better effectiveness for weapons.  We don't have to add extra modifiers for parrying attacks for better weapon-AC bonuses ... the modifiers are right there in the experience/level system.  Of course, we can add bonuses; but we're really only tweaking an already working system.

So much for AD&D.  I have another point to make.

Long ago, I introduced my stun lock system (recently renamed from just "stun").  In it, the better combatant has a higher chance of hitting the lesser combatant.  When Hichem hits Jocasta the 1st level for 3 hit points, he stuns her, thus allowing him to attack again before she is given a chance to do so.

This "stunning" will probably be confusing forever, because the combat system is viewed as a turn-based process.  I see the turn as representative for game play, but not as a descriptive for what is going on.

How does a fight usually go?  Hichem swings at Jocasta, she swings at him, he swings at her, she swings at him, ad nauseum?  No.  That's how Gygax saw it, or framed it ... and there's no wonder it's boring as hell.

A fight actually goes, Hichem swings at Jocasta, then swings again, gets off balance, she swings at him and hits, and because he's staggered by the blow, she swings again, glancing off his body, so he swings and misses, so she swings and hits again, then again, then again and Hichem drops unconscious.

Sounds more interesting right off, doesn't it?

Mechanically, it works like this, if Jocasta is a much better fighter (3rd level) than Hichem is, still being 1st.  When he hits, the blows are mostly taken on Jocasta's weapon.  Some of it touches her, but so little of it that she isn't stun locked by the damage he does.  When she hits, however (and she has a better chance to hit, because she's 3rd level), her blows use up a larger percentage of Hichem's hit points.  He's stun locked because he's easier to hit and the hits matter more, because he's lower level.

She doesn't win because she can "take more damage."  She wins because she takes LESS damage, as a percentage of her total hit points, which describes her superior use with a weapon, because she's gained experience that Hichem hasn't.

Just because we don't typically use the words, "Jocasta wins because she's a better fighter," insisting on this semantic of referring to her hit points and chance to hit, doesn't mean she isn't actually using her weapon a lot better than Hichem is.

We could improve our understanding of what's happening in a combat if we could stop letting language be a barrier to describing what is actually being represented here.

UPDATE:

Regarding those people who, after a century of failure, still think that incentives work on humans:

The TPK that should Have Been

The following sequence arose from events associated with the Campaign Senex, played in succession from February 17 to 24, 2017.

There are many moments when I think I am a very poor DM; when I weaken and do not follow my own precepts, even as I am vigorously flogging those precepts on my blog.  This is just such a time, an occasion where I set up a scene I should not have set up, then bailed the party out of the mess they helped created.  I should not have done that, either.

The scene began when the party entered an abandoned village in Turkey, Pazarli only to meet a single old man who warned them that there was no safe place to stay in the village.  This was the old man's exact words: "Safe? No. Nowhere safe."  He then went on to warn them that there were Turkish Janissaries just beyond the ridge.

This was the error my part.  It was not much of an adventure.  I wanted to get the players into a fight, preferably in the trees outside the village of Pazarli, that could presumably be kept up for a while.  I hoped the players would take the hint and choose to camp in the bushes.  Then, they could run into a small patrol on its way to search the village (they were perpetually searching for this same old man, who I had designated as a wererat), fight them, get some treasure, then wend their way out of the area meeting, occasionally, other soldiers.

If they made friends with the wererat, I supposed, they could find him a helpful ally and scout; but if they did not warm up to him, they could go it alone.  This was my expectation.

Unfortunately, the party was also told there were patrols in the hills. So they took the phrase, "nowhere safe" to mean that they might as well stay in the town as out in the trees.  Moreover, they were tired, they were near to suffering from a long journey (which, too, was part of my plan), and they adopted a helpful, protective demeanor towards the wererat.  This, despite the wererat/grandfather telling them the village had been repeatedly searched, with dogs ~ without, I thought it obvious, finding the old man. Perhaps the party realized this, but it made no difference to their offers to protect the old man nor their decision to settle in the town for the night.

So now the party was exposed, not hidden.  The town was going to fill up with soldiers.  Instead of meeting one patrol in the woods, the party was going to be infested with them.  Sigh.  I sent them conflicting messages and they did not adequately parse their situation. I made it worse by suggesting that the village was not searched every night.

Here I made my second error: I assigned the place the party would rest for the night without drawing a map.  I should have drawn a map.  The party had said they wanted "a single hut."  Anxious to make them feel safe, I put them in a building "recessed back from the main road" ... with a "courtyard outside the residence, a courtyard surrounded by two other buildings with a narrow 8 foot wide lane leading from the road."

Two things.  On my part, I had totally forgotten the party had a horse.  There had been a long recess between games and I simply forgot.  So this was not a good place for them.  The horse was an albatross, that made it difficult for them to sneak out ... which is what I was counting on them to do.  And here is why:

Because I had already intended to have the Turks search the town!  In my head, I had decided on this event when I expected the party to recess to the trees and not stay in the village.  I had to retain that commitment!  I feel very strongly that a good DM, having invented a scenario, must stay true to that scenario, no matter what the party decides to do.  I had settled in my mind that the village was going to be searched that night ... so that was absolutely what was going to happen.

Of course I could have changed that in my mind, and no one would have ever been the wiser. That's one of the deepest, darkest issues with being a DM.  Are you prepared to be true to your first intentions?  OR will you change those intentions willy-nilly, over and over, as the party makes up their mind to do something different. It is a matter of principle.  If you are a DM, and you feel your world can change upon your whim, you will soon be changing it constantly, without rhyme or reason, or consistency, every time the party surprises you.

I don't feel my would can, or should, change because the players make a given decision, whether or not it is one I predict.  BUT ... and I write this with shame ... I did forsake my principles later on, as the reader will see.  And I regret it strongly.  I hope I am never stupid enough to do it again.

I did not forsake my intention at this point, however.  I did have the village searched.  But hold off on that a moment.

I said there was a second thing, apart from my forgetting the party's horse.  The party never questioned the location I chose for them.  They didn't ask for a map, they didn't question the courtyard, they just accepted it.  Okay.  That happens.  I should have made a map and I did feel partly responsible for putting them in a dead end.  On the right is the map I should have given them.

So, there were communications issues ... and as the scene continued, knowing what I knew, I began to be concerned that I was overstepping my bounds.  This concern settled in to affect my choices as DM, as to how to present the situation for the party.  I did not want to trap the party in the courtyard, like the last scene of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  I wanted there to still be a chance that they could get out alive ~ and towards that end, I began looking for a means to save them.

continued elsewhere...

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

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

Dry

As a reader pointed out to me yesterday, it's true. I haven't posted lately.

I've had the time.  I haven't had the subject material.  I have been steadily moving the wiki (171 posts so far) this past week and that is turning out to be an all day process.  Or, at least, when I stop, I don't want to do anything.

I'm stunned by how much material the wiki contains.  It is amazing how much I've included there since starting the wiki in 2013.  I had hoped it would be more popular ... but it has been wonderful as a tool for running games, for keeping my thoughts, for expanding ideas and so on.  Talking about moving it, however, doesn't make for a good blog post.

I haven't had time for working up some new project I can discuss, because I am working on the wiki. I had plans for the time off I was going to have, since my place of work in being renovated and I'm laid off ... but those plans were set aside when wikispaces made its announcement.  Without being able to work on new material, though I have lots of time, I have nothing to write about.

I haven't any new insights about character building or settings to offer.  I wrote a post about assessment of value in campaigns, but I soon found I hated the post so I deleted it.

This is me, dry as a bone.

I'm working on a post for the master-class blog, which I will post part of in a few hours on this blog.  Patreon supporters can read it now.  I talk about an experience I had where I was not such a great DM.  It's been a hard essay to write, but a worthy one.

I'm still recording podcasts.  I have my sixth one today.  Nothing is cut and ready to go yet.  I feel at the moment that I will probably launch in late March, perhaps in early April.  I haven't decided.

When I can think of something more worthy of writing that this post, which is just a downer, I promise I will go with it.

The Wiki Begins to Move

So, with working on it all morning, I have shifted 70 pages onto the wiki, mostly index pages.  Everything that I've worked on thus far is associated with Player Characters ... and so it will go for quite some time, as I have hundreds of spells to take from Wikispaces to Blogger.  As well as many sage abilities.

After I get all the Player Character Material across, I will start working on Combat.  Then, probably, Trade & Equipment.  By then, the back of the task will be broken.

Right now, the wiki all works, all the links should be sound (though probably there's an error here or there).  The way I've done it, a reader will notice that the original wiki and the new blog are interchanged completely, so that movement back and forth is seamless. There shouldn't be any dead links along the way.  That's the goal, anyway.

There were lots of places on the past wiki that did lead nowhere.  Projects that weren't finished, spell lists that still had spells that weren't written yet ... I do tend to change from project to project, without worrying about whether or not I'll come back to something. Eventually, I always do.  If there are five 4th level druid spells without descriptions, or nothing at all for 5th level spells and higher, its because this is work that doesn't need doing right away.

I haven't gotten a comment on the blogger-wiki yet, and I'm not surprised.  I deliberately wrote a harsh rejoiner on the comments field:

Comments are welcome; however, the content on this blog is not purposed for critical evaluation. Comments are strictly limited to errors in text, need for clarification, suggested additions, link fails and other technical errors, personal accounts of how the rule as written applied in their campaign and useful suggestions for other rules pages.

All other comments will be deleted.

Let's face it; we all know what the internet is.  I'm absolutely interested in receiving comments, and letting the site be somewhat open in that way ... but I want useful comments, along the principles upon which the wiki is built.  I don't care how some other game system solves a problem, or what people "feel" about a rule, or anything that isn't hard business on the matter.  I do want any comment that says, "link such-and-such doesn't work" or pointing out a spelling error.  Once I fix the error, I can then remove such comments.

Other comments, I hope, will stand the test of time.  I'll just have to see.

Two Million

While I was recording, the blog rolled over: two million page views.

Ah, not bad, not bad. Of course, some do this in a weekend, with a single youtube video, but it still feels like an accomplishment to me.  Not because of the number, but because I've been ready to write 2,563 blog posts (including this one) in order to eek out this number from my readers.

Makes me feel like I can definitely do more.  I'm consciously thinking, all the time, of what skills I can bring to bear, in what ways, to bring more light to the business of role-playing and entertainment.  The deconstructions are about that.  As are the podcasts.  As was the comic last year, or the long investigation into game design that I explored.

There is just so much to this field, untapped as it were, that I feel still needs uncovering.  To that end, I go on reading, researching, discussing, evaluating and approaching, always being rewarded with something new and different in my travels.

I am more than glad to transfer all of that to you, my Gentle and much Esteemed Readers.  Pat yourselves on the back.  You opened your browsers to this blog two million times!

Tao of D&D's Wiki

I'm going to have to keep this post to the point, as I have an interview in 54 minutes.

I have started shifting my wiki. And I have decided to do it in what must be the stupidest way possible, which will have many a computer programmer face-palming hard enough to break their knuckles.

Here's the thing.

I've looked over the wikis that are out there and they have problems.  Some are clearly still using the same technology that was advanced in 2001.  Some are painfully restricted in content size, as little as 50 megabytes, which is also obviously a 2001 issue.  Others are overloaded with media crap, making them effectively useless for pleasant perusal.  And finally, the remainder are unfriendly either in the loading process, or in the need to be hosted by a third party platform.

Sigh.

The thing that worries me most is that I will move all this content onto a new system, which will then crash land in its turn.  It is suddenly clear to me that wiki technology is not taking off, it is not something that has captured the imagination of the common crowd and it is something that will probably be on its way out.  I need a platform that I can count on, that I know will still be there five years from now, that I am familiar with, that is friendly, and most of all, is free.

So I have decided to handle this the way that suits me.  In some ways, this will be less pleasant for some users; other users will not give a damn.  Most users, I think, because we've all learned how to use a search engine.

I have decided to create yet another blog.

This will create some issues.  There's no RSS feed, there's no backlink support, there's no way to undo or adjust changes that another user would make on the wiki ... and so, effectively, I'm going it alone again.  And I'm fine with that.  My concern is that I can reliably shift the wiki to another source and that I won't have to do this again next year.

The good side is that, first, the shift is made EASY because I'm familiar with blogger and because blogger doesn't care about excessive program applications - which I don't need and I don't use.  I couldn't give a damn about RSS or most of the features the Wikispaces offered.  What I care about is TEXT, images and links.

I began blending a new blog with the old wiki today and it is already going pretty well.

The other good feature is that the blog allows both comments and comment moderation.  That sounds like fun.

I'm not happy yet with the way the blog looks, but that can be adjusted still.  Anyway, if you want a look, I suggest starting with the General Index.

[P.S.  I was sure there was a way to reverse the order in which the blog published, so that the oldest post always showed first ~ no one uses that feature, but I thought it was there.  If anyone can find it for me, I'd appreciate it.]

Podcasting Notes, Thoughts

So, some notes on the podcast.

I've done three interviews now, with a fourth being set to be recorded this evening.  I don't want to give any notes on the past that will jinx any of the interviews going forward, but I do think there are some things I can say with some fairness.  Particularly as I have now begun cutting audio for final copy.

Having an agenda as a guest is a bad idea.  Not because the agenda is wrong or because we shouldn't have agendas ... nay, I'm all for a good, solid agenda, whether or not it supports my viewpoint.  However, I'm finding that an agenda tends to blot out the guest's preparedness to just talk about stuff.  Once the agenda is off their chest and on tape, I'm finding the wherewithal isn't there to start a new conversation on a new subject.  I've had two guests enter the interview with this approach.

It is beginning to look like one of the three interviews just isn't going to work because of this ~ which is a damn shame, but this is a learning process.  I can tell you from experience, not every journalism interview ends in a story, not every screenplay gets produced, not every pilot gets picked up for a series and not every book gets published.  It is the way of things.

It would be worse if I ignored the facts and published the podcast anyway ... for the present, however, I'm still thinking I can save the interview in the editing process.

As regards that, there are still things I am learning about sound, as well.  I have to adjust my mic going forward, or else I'm going to have to fix everything I say in editing (I am just too damn loud at this time).  That's already mounting up to be a big job.

My plan is to collect 13 interviews and run them over 13 weeks.  At the moment, I have 11 guests, including the three I've done ... so I just need two more.  After the 13 week run, I intend to have a 3-month hiatus, and then begin recording for another 13 episodes, most likely with a different theme.  This will make two series a year, with three month breaks in between.

It is pretty ambitious, and perhaps it won't work.  Still, I'm not crippled by the editing (I kind of like it, actually, it is sort of relaxing), and I am certainly comfortable in the chair interviewing guests.  I think, too, that hearing me speak humanizes me in a way that my writing does not.

When will the first podcast run?  Not sure.  I'd like to have a number of episodes in place before I start to broadcast them.

At the same time, a part of me says, "Fuck the TV schedule crap."  Why not just release the podcasts when they're finished, like any other content I release on the net?  I admit, I'm less and less convinced that people rush to the net to search for a podcast they know is being released on a given day.  We may be witnessing the end of culture's infatuation with scheduled content ~ and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

If I released all 13 podcasts on the same day, some people would binge; some people would listen to a few and punk out.  Some would half listen to some, listen all the way through others.  It would be uncertain, for sure.

But releasing them week by week is no better.  People would listen to this week's, then forget next week and the week after, only to vaguely remember there were podcasts, search and find three waiting for them.

I think the only reason to release them one at a time is so that I can highlight each individual episode on the blog, on facebook and on twitter.  But in that case, who cares what the period between podcasts is?  Five days, ten days, two days ... whenever the next one is up, I'm going to write about it anyway, and subscribers are going to get told.  So a weekly schedule just isn't necessary.

These are thoughts in my mind as I settle in to edit, and as I continue interviewing.  What happens, happens.  Watch this space for more information.

Robur's House

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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