Racism

Last week I began working on the last of my personal stats tables, charisma, something that I've put off doing for a year or so.  It is intended to be a background generator, my philosophy being that there are certain things an individual doesn't get to determine about themselves - build, health, family, social class and biology ... the latter including, of course, the color of one's eyes, hair and skin.

My first thought was to put together something simple, a table that would be rolled upon at random, but quickly my sense for the real got in the way.  You cannot simple create a universal table for an individual's hair color, since the likelihood of that hair being blonde or black varies considerably with whether that person is, say, Egyptian or Icelandic.

This is not something D&D remotely touches upon - not in any book I've read, though the Dragon Magazine might years ago have had something on it (that I missed).  Human racial characteristics are taboo.  In most 'worlds,' the Polars might be Vikings and the Equatorials might be Bantu, but specific distinctions for populations are not designated.  When you talk about 'race' in D&D, you are talking about elves, dwarves and halflings, NOT Samoyads, Berbers and Polynesians.

But unfortunately for me, I run the Earth and I cannot simply ignore said designations, if I want to retain the world's cultural and political identity.  If you get off the boat in Vietnam, you will not be met by a group of blue-eyed, red-haired villagers.  It would not be Vietnam, and if not, what is the point?

These days, it is practically racist to even use the terms Caucasoid, Mongoloid or Negroid ... the evidence to show that melanin levels are a product of environment has destroyed the 'scientific racism' that was a subject for discussion in schools even in my lifetime.  And I take no issue with that; the less divided we are, the better.  My concerns only reach as far as producing a random table that has any chance of telling a player what his or her color statistics are (eyes, hair, skin) at the moment of birth.

I have a table, based on data gathered for my trade tables, that indicates randomly where a character is born, this table being dependent upon where a character starts in my campaign world.  If the character joins the game when the party is in India, he or she is very likely to be Asian; if the character joins when the party is in Gibraltar, he or she would probably be Spanish or Moroccan.

But unless I want to create a table for every point on earth, I'm stumped.  How easy it would be to assign characteristics according to geography ... but it isn't just a question of saying that people from Switzerland all have this hair color and this eye color.  Most people may not travel more than seven miles from their place of birth, but genetically we're not that homogenous.  After all, people from the exact same parents might have differing hair and eye color, my sister and I for example.

The obvious answer - one that many a gentle reader is thinking right now - would be to ditch the table and let players simply choose their own characteristics.  Same old saw, it's a game, it's fantasy, blah blah blah.  I think I have to call that the most tired argument in the D&D community.  I swear, 'personal fantasy' is a euphemism for players wanting to prop up their own withered egos, bewailing that in real life they are such social lepers that they need this game to be fantasy if only that they can feel like real men or desirable women - something they just can't have otherwise.  As if my world needs to be a fictional therapy for losers who can't bear being Mr. Pink in this scenario.  I'm not your enabler, I'm your DM.

Fact is, I'd like a series of tables that make it clear to the player that when they put the little 8 under their charisma, the ultimate throwaway stat, that they KNOW they have an 8 charisma, complete with mottled, sickly looking skin, buck-teeth, stuttering and body odor.  I don't give a crap that its also a description of the actual player sitting at the table - if you want to be a stud or a babe, sacrifice that 17 dexterity and put it under charisma instead.  You might stumble when you walk, but you'll look super-hot doing it.

So yes, I'm adamant about having the dice pick out your hair color.  And since I don't want to make up a thousand tables, I'm somewhat stuck with some very racist generalizations - racist because now it's racist to say that there are 'races.'  I feel I will probably produce very simple tables, with very few possible results for each region, to compensate for the many regions that I could draw up tables for.  As a guideline for how many, I'll throw up the table below, a German map from the 19th century.  Try not to be offended.

This sort of thing - being told their general appearance - doesn't bother my party at all.  They're used to being from a multiplicity of regions, since they've wandered around from Russia to Iran to Eastern Europe.  Members of the party are Egyptian, Greek, Finnish, Persian and Russian.  The girl who used to play a Chinese cleric moved away about a year ago.

Naturally there's the matter of non-human races.  Because the origins for elves, dwarves and halflings are fairly homogenous, for those races I could create one single table.  But I'll probably think of reasons to goof that, too.

UPDATE:

I should have included that this is the table I'm upgrading.

I've made up this map for the general distribution of humanoids in my world.  It only includes those areas that I have designed:

Guilds

A guild is not, as many people are apt to say, a kind of 'trade union.' Trade unions were founded as a means of representing a laboring working class against an ownership-management class, to force the latter to make concessions in wages and working conditions.

Guilds are made up of small owner-operators who join together in organizations in order to monopolize a certain product to impose price-fixing upon the consumer. More than a trade union, a guild is much closer to a lobby - in that the larger the number of members, the more influence it has upon the government, encouraging public spending which benefits the guild.

Future members of the guild begin as apprentices, who are educated to practice shoemaking, baking or tanning according to traditional, accepted guidelines already adhered to by the members of the guild. Innovation is not rewarded. Guilds have no interest in competition, personal achievement or the transfer of knowledge. Recipes and methodologies are kept in the strictest of confidence, and are never, ever shared with anyone.  Those inside the guild are already perfectly aware, so mention even between members is discouraged, since a casual conversation might be heard by anyone.

Given this sort of conspiratorial attitude among guild members, even those creating the most mundane of material objects, what was the benefit to society?  Obviously, the guild benefits, since it controls the trade in that particular guild - but why was the monopoly not challenged?  Why did independent breadmakers not simply undersell the competition?

Guilds offered something which competition could not:  certified quality of goods.  The guild was not founded upon profit, but upon control of trade ... and it relied heavily upon popular support for its products.  A failed shoe or an unworthy bread did not encourage people to seek their shoes and bread elsewhere, but to descend upon the shopkeepers with club and spade.  It was not a forgiving society.  But a guarantee of quality also guaranteed popular support for those guilds operating in a town.  Thus was the guild's control and power guaranteed.

And while technological innovation was suppressed, it did occur ... very, very slowly.  To the tune of centuries.  And since the innovation did tend to result directly from the activities of those within the guild, the innovations were also closely guarded.  An independent shoemaker would be likely to produce shoes which could not hope to compete in quality with the guilds ... and since the guilds also tended to control things like raw material goods, a shoemaker that did not own his own cows, and perform his own tanning, was not likely to find those things provided.  Thus the self-made leather was a poorer quality, the craftsmanship was a poorer quality and the population had already learned to rely on the street of the cobbler's for their goods.  The best an independent shoemaker could hope to do would be to reside in some small backwater where the Cobbler's Guild had no interest.

Thus was born a hundred fairy tales.

The demise of the guild came about when the quality of a product could be reasonably duplicated (not perfectly, mind, but humans are not perfect) by machines, who could produce goods in such quantities that guilds could not compete.  Guilds operate under conditions where only so many teapots can be produced by a given silversmith in a day - the limited number of teapots existing in the world then justifies the fixed price for a teapot, and a guaranteed wage for the guild member so long as they continue to sit at their bench and tap away.  Moreover, a silversmith can only take on so many apprentices at a time, or is willing to take on an apprentice (if the local market wants one), as it takes considerable time to teach an apprentice to perform the skills of a silversmith to an adequate degree.  It can take years for a guild to effectively increase the availability of a product, should the population suddenly swell - which can bring in foreign ex-guild members of other cities, challenging the monopoly.  Violence did ensue.  And meanwhile, a population was want to do without while the matter was settled.

However, the creation of a factory to make teapots was something that could be done in a matter of months ... and its creation did not require any special education for most of the laborers involved in the factory's creation.  One silversmith is consulted in the making of the machine that churns out teapots, and then that machine can be duplicated again and again, by other machines that required the consultation of only one tool-maker.

Quality declined (and artistry, too), of course, and continues to decline, from the level of profound craftsmanship that had been managed by the guilds circa 1700 ... but that doesn't change that in the present day we would rather have an immediate availability for less cost, however quality is compromised, and however little artistry goes into our daily material purchases.

This, I hope, goes to show in some small part why present-day assumptions about economics simply don't apply to the Medieval template.  But let's move onto the guild's application in D&D.

In large cities, guilds tended to conglomerate in certain squares or along certain streets.  A village of less than 500 people might have only one baker, but a huge city like Venice or Genoa would have scores ... and the baking houses would establish themselves near those places where rurals appeared with their sacks full of milled flour.  The mills tended to be in the hills where they could count on running water or wind for power.  Moreover, a substantial clean water source would be needed by the bakers as well, plus coal or wood for their ovens ... so the placement of the baker's guild within the city wouldn't be something random.

Because the guild would have money, and their own interests, it was common for them to hire a private police force - what D&D calls the town watch.  But the watch would not be worried about the 'town,' but specifically about the homes and businesses of the guild who had hired them.  And their duties would be more than to stop thieves.  They would actively take part in opposing anyone who could threaten the bakers business, pushing off the unwanted and having disputes with other watches hired by other guilds, whose presence there might also depend upon the farmer's market and abundant fuel. 

If the guild was strong enough in local politics, the watch might have unchallenged authority on that street, to break the legs of thieves or even surreptitiously kill strangers in a secluded basement ... with the city's guard looking the other way, refusing to answer complaints or otherwise being impotent to take action.

A strong city might have a hundred little political entities, each one operating on each street, waging private wars, carrying forth vendettas, having territorial aspirations or struggling against being pushed out of the best streets and into the seedier parts of town.  A particular guild might be rousting out the poorer inhabitants in the surrounding streets and be engaged in a project of housebuilding for wealthier clients ... or interested in taking advantage of many refugees in a vox populi putsch to put someone of their own guild into political power - if this should happen to be a republican city like Florence or Amsterdam.  There are possibilities for adventure, for or against an evil guild, whether they be brewers or puddlers or glassblowers.

It's a shame that in most D&D campaigns the only existing guilds that rise above the radar are the thieves guild and the assassin's guild ... neither of which ever existed in history.  Even the Court of Miracles from Victor Hugo's the Hunchback of Notre Dame, or the street of Madame DeFarge from Dickens' Tale of Two Cities were made up of unwanted persons from a variety of different professions and guilds.  In truth, the thieves 'guild' is a sort of joke, the way that the oldest 'profession' used to be (though the application of that word is being taken seriously now).  Not really a guild at all, but a group of outcasts who have nothing but each other, and enough desperate will to make themselves dangerous.

Fagin's boys (Dickens again, Oliver Twist), of course, were not old enough to have any profession, except that of pickpockets ... but if you can take from that book that pickpocketing was a long-term career path, you might want to read it again.

Fodder For My Detractors

I was asked if I could give an example of my playing style, and so I recorded this, last night, with my regular party.  There was no rehearsal, but a mic has a way of making people talk less ... so I wouldn't say my party acted quite within normal perameters.  I did ask for people to be a bit more focused than usual.

We picked up with the party exploring a tunnel that they'd come across by breaking through a stone wall associated with an underground home on a river bank.  The recording describes them exploring the hole and finding something unexpected.  The two files on YouTube run over 15 minutes, and do not come to a resolution.  I let the mic run until one character was making hand signals to another that Ivan should use a rope, and then you can hear me at the end goodnaturedly prodding the party about it.

This fifteen minutes passed quickly for us.  No one believed it had really been that long.

What happens next is that the party interrogates the assassin, finds out he's working for his ‘master’ as a sentry. They force the sentry to lead them to the master’s lair, whereupon they find the master's pet: a catoblepas.


I ran the catoblepas so that it petrifies with its gaze rather than causing death, but the party did kill it. The way that was done was nice - the 2nd level mage/thief wound up being close enough to it to cast a blink cantrip, which for one round suspended the catoblepas' gaze attack, while the illusionist cast a chromatic orb of blindness. The catoblepas failed its save vs. the blink cantrip (rolled a 1) and against the chromatic orb (rolled a 4). After that, it was just a matter of killing a large, blind monster.

Of course, with my mass rules the catoblepas weighed 2,500 lbs., had 85 hp (I rolled low, average was more like 117), and caused 3d8 damage per attack. Unfortunately for me, it only got one attack, causing 19 damage to the mage/thief immediately after he cast the blind cantrip. Dropped him to -7 hp, but he lived. I say it was 'unfortunate' because I like slamming the party as hard as I can.

But it was loads of fun. In spite of the party's success, they now have four petrified party members, who were all transformed in the first two rounds of fighting. But now they're in the position of worrying about what the master might do once he learns his pet is dead.

It was a short session, as we quit halfway through the night to run the other campaign, the one run by my daughter. She wasn't quite ready for us at the beginning of the night, so I ran at the beginning to give her some prep time. Besides, I wanted to make the above recording.

The DM Is Not A Player

This article is seven years old.  For those interested, I upgraded my opinion about this question a few months ago, as I am always evolving as a DM.


Here was a stunning assertion from runjikol, in reference to the statement that NPCs are props for the game, made in the comments section of the previous post:

"PCs are just props for the game, too. They're the props of the players. NPCs the props of the GM. My point is that the internal rules of the game, when it comes to mechanics and what can be achieved with them, I want to be consistent between NPC and PC. So if a PC can sway an NPC with a Charisma check then an NPC should be able to sway a PC with a Charisma check, too."

Blink, blink.

Let me make something clear.  'Non-players' are NOT players.  NPCs are not characters through which the DM 'plays' in the campaign.  The DM who uses NPCs in a way so as to feel a part of the game is seriously deluded about the DM's role.

I hate the term referee where it is applied to the Dungeon Master, mostly because I like that the game has independent terms, applicable only to its own milieu.  But 'referee' is a helpful term in this circumstance.  Referees are not players, and are subject within the game to rules that apply only to them.  Referees are never allowed to touch the ball.  Referees are not allowed to change, influence, or otherwise stymie the course of play.  They are not privileged to exercise their emotional judgment in a given circumstance.  They are highly discouraged from interacting with the players of the game, even in regards to friendly banter.  The referee does not answer when casually addressed.  The referee does not offer casual chatter or advice.  The referee calls the game, and that is all.

So when I hear the NPC promoted to the level of the PC, so that the referee can play along with everyone else, the spines along my back rise, my breath shortens and small animals nearby ... mildly take notice.

I realize that DMing can seem lonely.  I generally feel a bit down after a campaign, worried about whether it went well, if everyone had a good time, or if the ideas I presented just sucked.  Sometimes, I know that they did.  And those times paint the good times with a sort of "I'm not sure if they're being polite to me, or if they had a good time" kind of vibe.  Only now and then do you have a session where everyone is so ramped up that there can't be any question about the night being kick-ass.

In fact, the after 'drop' of DMing a game is similar to performing on stage.  Prior to the performance you arrive at the theatre, you chat with others, the stage manager makes a few announcements about ongoing technical issues (the director has long since departed for better shores), and the level of energy is still quite low.  But as people move around getting their costumes together, as you have your make-up applied, as the props that will be wrecked during that night's performance are brought forward from the rear shop, and as things are flipped on and tested, the energy level climbs.  The doors are opened, the audience starts to mill around the lobby, the voices in the back are hushed and ultimately suppressed completely ... and at the point when you are frozen in place, ready to go on stage, making the least movement possible so as not to give yourself away, your skin is flowing with electricity.  Most of the cast feels their nerves take hold.  But then the play begins, and you walk the boards, speak your lines, insult the designated villain, pontificate about the verisimilitude of life to earn whatever applause you're due that night, and the energy tapers off.  The play is over.  You bow, you walk off stage, you scrape the make-up away, throw off the clothes - some to the laundry, but most not - and you're done.  There's no cast party in a run, but someone is always ready to get drunk ... because, you see, with the performance over you feel like absolute shit.

The energy has gone through you and you are now a dead battery, dry until you're powered up for the next performance.  The experience is different for you.  You were not a member of the audience, sitting out front enjoying the play.  The play for you is work.

You might catch a snippet of pleasure watching someone you like perform their bits, but probably not - you've got your own character to get into, a character over which you have NO CONTROL.  It does what the writer and the director have agreed upon.  Not you.  Your performance is to behave in a manner that makes the other actors more comfortable from night to night.  The last thing you want to do is act like an idiot, forcing the play in the direction you want it to go, since that will only destroy the creator's vision.  You are not the creator, you are the facilitator.   And however well you've facilitated, when it's over, you're left feeling like shit.

There are DMs out there who delude themselves into thinking they write the play, or that they direct the vision - but they're wrong.  The dice write the play.  The dice determine the winner and the loser.  The game has designed the sets and built the stage, and brought in the audience.  All the DM can do is perform the vision as well as he or she can, take a bow, and - with luck - not have to get tight alone afterwards.

Now I realize I've put two metaphors forth - DM as referee and DM as actor.  I've been careful not to mix them, but to present them in order.  As the gentle reader reads, please try not to mix them up.  A thing can have more than one metaphor applied to it.  A thing often has better than only two.  A complex thing might need seven or eight dozen.  Try to read each metaphor as though I gave it independently - which, in fact, I did.

And when you DM, and you're fucking up trying to be both the audience and the performer, or trying to be both the player and the referee, try to note the dull, unhappy faces of your players and recognize that they're blaming this particular presentation on you.

You may only be the facilitator, but unfortunately for you, you're the responsible facilitator.  You wanted the part.  But that doesn't make you more important than you are.  The players came to PLAY.  You're only there to perform.

Die Rolling - The DMs Straightjacket

Offhandedly I’ve been working on charisma effects lately, trying to finish up the charisma stats table that I never finished to go along with strength, intelligence, wisdom and so on. And in the process of considering the effects of an individual’s power of persuasion, I’ve settled on eight primary desired outcomes. Let me emphasize, I’m not attempting any sort of complete list. The gentle reader will probably offer ones I haven’t thought of. Meanwhile, let me suggest the following behaviors that others will have regarding the character, depending upon the character’s charisma:

• Others won’t/will offer aid when the character is in trouble.
• Others won’t/will honor commitment they make with the character.
• Others won’t/will return favors for things the character does.
• Others won’t/will obey when given instructions.
• Others won’t/will attempt to emulate the behavior, beliefs or activities of the character.
• Others won’t/will ‘sleep’ with the character.
• Others won’t/will sacrifice their lives for the character.
• Others won’t/will sacrifice their morals, status or wealth for the character.

These are quite general, and are meant to be. They would apply to specific NPCs who would know the character, or at least be familiar with the character to at least a minimal degree.

Now, for my purposes, I see no reason why a roll may not be imposed to determine the likelihood of any of the above occurring. I recognize that there are some people who oppose vehemently the use of any roll to determine the behavior of an NPC, but for my money this just leaves the decision for what an NPC does in the potentially biased hands of the DM. DM’s, like people, are not so diverse in their moment-to-moment opinions on things that they can be trusted to represent the entire range of human behavior and reaction, and for that reason I think it’s necessary to force a DM to acknowledge a random element’s potential for forcing a prized NPC to once in awhile cave to the party’s desire, sacrifice a little, resist a little or otherwise behave differently than the DM’s absolutist dogma. In other words, give the party a chance. Roll a die.

For those d20 lovers out there, I propose the following table:

Of course, 3d6 could be substituted for a d20, but that's a matter of personal choice.

I am intentionally offering the above idea as one that is unfinished, since there is a vast set of modifiers that ought to apply here.  Obviously, a player's charisma for a start, but also a set for certain individuals who would be more likely to obey, emulate, sacrifice or otherwise bed the character.  A prostitute would not need a die roll to sleep with the character - but she might need a die roll to sleep with the character for free, which might occur if the character successfully rolls an 18+.

The idea here is that if the character makes a request (or arrangement) with an NPC, this would indicate the NPC's likelihood of complying.  The DM may want the NPC to lay down his or her life for the character, but that's probably a bias fitting more with the DMs plans for the campaign than with the player's actual charisma.  Players who have a 9 or 10 charisma tend to get away with murder where it comes to DMs who just want to have NPCs behave as story-assets, and that's exactly the sort of DM I don't want to be.

I wouldn't expect the above idea to be popular, since DMs are rather fond of not being restrained by dice.  That is one of the benefits of the screen.  And there is a powerful lobby online arguing for no-rolling D&D ... which strikes me as a sort of mastubatory naval-gazing, actually.  I do play a non-rolling D&D type activity - I call it novel-writing, and as I do it I do not roll dice and I am absolute god over the actions of every character.  And I do understand that occasionally multiple people get together to write novels.

For myself, I like the idea of a player have the power to insist that I roll to see if the innkeeper can be conned via charisma into letting the player stay the night for free; or if the magistrate's daughter would tumble a bit with a pretty face.  All against my own personal wishes, you understand.  As a DM I am always shooting myself in the foot, giving players all sorts of die rolls with which to control their worlds - if the players can be smart enough to remember when to roll the dice and at the right times.  That's actually not easy.

If, by chance, the gentle reader might be open to the above concept, I'm equally open to suggestions about what might constitute reasonable modifiers to the dice.  It might be fun to work up a couple hundred, or say a score for each of the eight options.

The Skew Of Society

Wickedmurph requested last week that I convey my "... thoughts on the role of church/clerics in a society where magical healing is a common/effective tool. My thought is that it would significantly change the sociological structure of a medieval society."

And Maroon added that he was interested in how I handled magic healing in my game. "If 6 points of damage is just a scratch to one but a deep wound to another, what does 6 points of healing do? How does hit point recovery in general play out?"

So we'll tackle both in this post, and a little more besides.

Maroon first, as it's the easier question. I realize that some of my comments on this post does create a sort of double-standard where it comes to healing spells, vis-a-vis their being more 'effective' on a lower level ... effective in this case being that they are able to heal a greater percentage of the individual's total hit points. That's Maroon's quoted question, above.

I would say that I'm not that niggling in my concerns about the game. My previous arguments were about zero-levels having enough hit points to be a challenge, not a forensic discussion on what sorts of wounds exactly were experienced by lower levels vs. higher levels. My exact words were, "I don't see severe damage occurring until getting down to the last few hit points that a character has." I was being deliberately vague about what was meant by 'severe.' Specifically, you could say, a blow that would have an actual chance of knocking an individual unconscious, or debilitating their combat effectiveness. This would certainly happen much more easily to a rookie than an experienced veteran. A few arrows landing around a rookie, and one glancing off his forehead and causing a light flesh wound, would be enough to cause them to faint or crawl away in terror, or even panic stupidly when they're not hurt that badly. At the same time, someone who's been hit before, and often, will snap off the arrow in his chest and go on fighting.

But you know, that's all just apologetic crap. Truth is, I don't think about it much. Hit points are a convenient battle abstract, and I like it recognized that even the lowest level characters have enough of the abstract to at least get hit a few times (on average) before caving like fluff. Sure, two sword blows should be enough to put a peasant down (average 9 damage), but there ought to be a better than 1 in 64 chance that they won't.

And I hate to disappoint, but the application of a healing spell in my world is grossly unrealistic - but eminently playable. A cleric casts the spell, whacks a player with the healing, and that player can jump up the next round and get back to swinging. That sort of thing wouldn't fly in a novel and it wouldn't play well in a movie - and I wouldn't have it that way in either - but it kicks ass in a combat game.

As I said once before, I'm not opposed to D&D being a game ... for me, that means as complicated as possible, with the rules being clear-cut. Here are my rules regarding casting a cure light wounds spell, if you're interested. I only have somatic components for spells, so the cleric doesn't need to pull things out, they can just start casting during their combat move. They can't move more than five feet while casting. If they are nudged, knocked, hit or otherwise thrown off-kilter, the spell is ruined (why? who knows, force lines maybe). If the party to be healed is more than 5 feet away, the cleric can move 5' per round and cast the spell the next round or the round after that, provided they don't get knocked. Cure light wounds heals 5-8 damage, not 1-8. They can distribute the healing to more than one person, but they can bestow healing to only one person per round. The cleric needs to apply only the lightest touch, and any part of the body will do. Therefore, players in combat can be healed while fighting.
My players are used to it and they like it. I don't think it reduces the challenge of the game, so its fine the way it is.

ickedmurph's question about churches and clerics is more ticklish. It should be noted (and so rarely is) that the power of a magical cleric to weild power in a medieval setting should be at least fifty times greater than in actual reality ... which was itself extensive. Consider a village where every accident, every childhood illness, every momentary lapse in judgement regarding the loss of a finger or appendage can be instantly fixed and cured. Consider that the loss of a finger, if the finger is retained, can be easily made better if the finger is held up to the rest of the body and an ordinary cure spell is used (restoration wouldn't be necessary).

And now consider how the people of that village would feel about the cleric (or druid, it applies to them, also) in question ... about the safety of their children, about the certainty of their immortal souls (now existing with observable proof), and about the possibility of extended or even immortal life (reincarnation). Those people will be violently loyal to the cleric who has promised, and proved, his or her community investment. They will not couch persons of other faith, they will not hesitate to kill a threat to the cleric or temple, and they will certainly not listen to the liberal or otherwise blasphemous babblings of strangers blowing through towns.

Proof positive that religious beliefs are real would substantially increase the power of the church - which is hard to imagine, since the church wielded immense power in our history without that proof.
I tend to play my world out to be more liberal than that, since it makes for a highly repressed culture and therefore a world that players are afraid to move in. But I can play certain regions/kingdoms as harsh as I want, as adventure fodder.

As an aside, about my decision, two decades ago, to stop playing with material components for spells. Mostly, I hated them, and the players hated them. They felt like a punishment for getting to be higher level, being just another cheap way to strain money out of the player's pocket. It was particularly resented since the cleric, for instance, struggled to get up to 55,000 or 220,000 X.P. only to have those great spells stigmatized by extra costs. After all, it would take literally years of campaigning to reach 7th or 9th level in my world - upwards of 50-60 runnings. So I threw out the extra restraints on using those spells in favor of a more friendly perspective.

Having added spells to my trade tables, however, I find myself in a quandry. It is much rarer to find a 9th level cleric than a 1st level cleric, so it is only natural that 5th level spells be much less available than 1st level spells. So naturally, it a party wants to have a dead character raised, they should expect to pay through the nose ... say, 5,000 g.p., at least. Anything less would hardly be a penalty for dying.
However ... what happens when the cleric character reaches 9th level, and now possesses raise dead? And can cast that spell every day? I run a world that is rather thickly populated, such that there are typically 200,000 people or more living within a 60 mile radius. That's enough that if someone's just died (and we're talking 77+ people dying per week), the cleric can easily be sent for and be expected to arrive within the 9-day max. And while most individuals wouldn't have 5,000 in cash, there are a lot of fixed houses around that are worth thousands each - and what individual wouldn't give up their house if they could have their husband or wife back?

It seems all well and good to say that this is fair, but since the spell can be cast daily, do you really want to give your cleric character 260,000 g.p. per year for doing nothing but sit on their ass? (that's assuming they cast the spell only once a week - everyday would be 1.825 million g.p.).

In the wider view, there's just no way that the cost of raise dead can be as much as 5,000 g.p. Given the steady condition of dying people, everything would be owned by the church in short order ... and there would be no more money to give over to the church to raise one's loved ones. (Note that this problem wouldn't be improved by reinstating material components ... it would just put all the money in the hands of the apothecaries, who sell the components - which they could conjure from off-plane, further distorting the system until it was broken).

Giving the gentle reader three options:

A) The cost of raise dead is fairly trivial, and therefore not a punishment at all for the party. This is fine for play, but sociologically it would make people much more willing to take risks, wouldn't it? How would that affect ordinary community behavior? Entertainments? Are we talking naked jousting? Widespread masochism? Could you burn a witch and still keep her from killing your cows next week? If it gets so even the common people can afford to pay the cleric, where goes the fear with which the upper crusts rule? If everyone in the household from the cook to the dressmaker did not fear death at the master's hands, is there anyone a cleric couldn't have assassinated?

But of course, whatever you charge down at the church, a cleric can always give the spell away for free, right?

B) Introduce a non-fiscal penalty, such as draining the strength of the cleric for some period upon casting the spell. But which spells would you choose for this penalty? And aren't we again talking about punishing a player for success?

C) Create a disinterest in raising the dead. "Yes, mom's dead, but we'd rather keep the house." What are the sociological implications of a world where people would casually choose to leave people in the grave? Would love die in favor of materialism? I mean, more than it does right now?

The phrase, "I'll love you forever," would have to be changed to, "I'd raise you" ... since it just wasn't done. Followed by the ever popular, "I wouldn't give two cents to raise my father." I see a rather cold, insidious world there, where familial ties were conveniently dispensed with as everyone hardened themselves against considering any kindness to be a weakness. How long is it before the five grand you won't give for raising dead becomes the two hundred you wouldn't pay for removing paralysis?

D) Create a refusal to offer aid. The clerics can, but they won't. Nevermind that it would remove a huge opportunity for them to influence the social fabric, they're just stubbornly opposed to helping anyone.
Resentment, anyone?

Overall, I see problems. Mostly because I don't want to hand over heaps of money to the players for no effort. Sitting on their laurels is one thing ... funnelling the coin of the world into their pockets is something else.

Of course, there's always the possibility of creating clerical wars, between clerics working their 'territory' in a gangland fashion, rubbing out the competition and so on - not for beliefs, but to cultivate the dying to make coin. That undoubtedly sounds interesting to some, but I myself have no interest in running a campaign based on the Roaring Twenties.

Whatever the case, it all seems contrary to the usual perception of D&D. I'm not sure what I'll do about it ... make rules about who can, or cannot, be paid for their spells (and who's allowed to pay), based on social hierarchy and such. Best thing I can think of to retain the status quo.

A Calm, Cool, Gentle Presentation

Recently, I've been watching through a BBC series, The Nazies and the Final Solution.  It's fairly remarkable in that it adds considerable detail to a subject that I've always thought was treated cursively and repetitively by most documentaries.  I suggest having a look at it.  Overall, the subject tends to get under my skin and raises my anger, making it difficult to watch at times, but I concentrate on the knowledge gained.  I don't wish to close my eyes to it.

With the close of the third episode, which I saw last night, my partner and I had a discussion about certain facets of the Nazi plan.  She pointed out that she was interested in the policy they used of making everything appear very normal, of being polite to everyone who climbed off the trains.  The standard trope of Nazis shouting at prisoners and German shepherds with sharp teeth barking just wasn't so.  In fact, the soldiers were very gracious.  "Please put your belongings here, please stand there, if we could please have the travellers from Warsaw move to the left side of the platform and those from Bialystok to the right ..." and so on.

The greater horror - and horror in terms of roleplay has been up for discussion of late - was that the participants did not see the horror coming, certainly not until they were inside the showers and it was too late to do anything.  It did not take long for the camp guards to recognize that a calm, passive face encouraged everyone to move obediently in the direction wished for.  It's often asked why the Jews were so complacent about walking into the gas chambers to be slaughtered by the millions.

They did it because the Nazis said, "Please."

And this allows me here to make a brief comment upon the loading up of terrifying elements at the beginnings of D&D modules.  And it allows me to comment further upon why a module, even a polite one, wouldn't work on my players.

In a sandbox campaign, where everything is mostly calm and non-threatening as the party moves from town to town, or spends time steadily building up their domains, there's no reason to suspect that I have anything in particular up my sleeve.  I could present a circumstance of peacefulness and comfort for the party, and walk them right into Treblinka without batting an eye ... and they'd never see it coming.

But the instant I pull out a module, that's all blown.  Unless I want to try to memorize the module, so that I can speak it without having to look at notes, the party knows I have something planned, and they won't trust a damn thing I say.

In an ordinary sandbox campaign, the bartender can approach the party, offer a taste of the latest import that's just come in, suggest there are some unusual qualities in the wine that make it very satisfying, and there's a possibility the party will buy a bottle.

But if I have a module open on my table, and the bartender offers a bottle of wine, then the wine is poisoned, the bartender is a spy for an evil duke, the bar is the headquarters for the Hearteaters of the Flatulent Sphinx and so on and so forth.  I have shown my hand and every player has their weapons out and their backs up.

It's no better for all those DMs who are carefully crafting their own adventures, complete with hooks and maps, which are sitting stacked with the books when the DM sits down to the table.  Worse, the originating announcement at the start of the evening is usually, "I've just obtained a copy of ..." or "I've been working all weekend on this fellows, hope you like it."

You cannot hope to obtain the sort of terror that possesses a character in a Lovecraftian novel if the character knows from the outset that they are in a Lovecraftian novel!  See, the reader knows it, he bought the book at the store in the real world, but the characters have no fucking clue ... they're just going about their daily lives, buying bottles of wine and visiting relatives, utterly oblivious that in the next 140 pages something awful is about to come to light.

It was suggested that my failing at Death Frost Doom stemmed from not properly merging the module with my campaign.  It may not have occurred to some - but when reviewing a product, it does little good to make great changes to the product that others wouldn't be able to make if they were to purchase that product.  As a reviewer, it is beholden upon me to present the product exactly as written.  And as written, the party made it clear that, once presented with the dripping horror of the first few interactions, that they wanted nothing to do with the place.  It wasn't Treblinka, you understand.

Railroading the party was the only way to obtain a more thorough review of the material, which is something my party understood.  I had no reason to run the module at all except to obtain perspective through which I'd be able to write the review.  I had no other agenda.  From a personal point of view, no, I wouldn't have run the module at all.  But I could hardly write my review about that.

As it happened, when the players did get inside the module, they found it wasn't very scary at all.  If they had continued on past room 18, they would have found a series of rooms with various low-level undead, all of whom the party had fought before on previous occasions, ending in treasure.  I read these rooms aloud to the party after the insurrection, and their feeling was, "Is that all?"

The trouble is that module-and-planned-adventure thinking has the process entirely backwards.  You don't present the party with a nightmare scenario and then reduce the last few bits of it to poking through boxes and cleaning up critters.  Bilbo does not walk out his door into a horrorscape.  He steps onto a road and starts walking, with rather friendly companions.  The first critical scene in the telling of Frodo's story starts with a Birthday Party.

Suppress every sign that the party is about to encounter anything.  Hide your maps and your descriptions.  Explain that you don't have an adventure planned this week, that we'll just 'wing it.'  Try to present the first few aspects of your campaign from memory, and speak the words with an air of dispassion, that you don't care what the party does.  Give no sign that anything you have to say has the least importance.

You smooth the feathers of the party down, you make it a nice bottle of wine, you demonstrate that they have nothing to fear by having the bartender sit down and tell them a sad story about how his wife is cheating on him ... and from there you build the story, bit by bit.  Please put your things here.  Please move to the side here.  If I could just have everyone over sixty line up here ... yes, Ma'am, we will be serving dinner in the mess hall immediately after your shower.  It's been a very difficult trip for everyone and we'll need to clean up before everyone can enter the camp ..."

Goal Posts

The hit point system in D&D is the worst combat simululation ... except for all the others.

In spite of my last post, I actually quite like the HP system.  My primary argument was that too few hit points were impractical in terms of the potential damage that NPC's, particularly zero levels, ought to be able to withstand.  It isn't that I don't imagine some people would have 1 hp, given medical or physical conditions ... but to argue that all non-combative persons should have less than 5 hp is ridiculous, from a game-challenge point of view.

But this post is not inspired by the very good argument that went on yesterday.  I want to answer a question from Carl, who asked if I equated physical damage to HP.  As he says, the logic of the D&D approach "...breaks down rapidly as characters level up, and I think it starts with HP too low at 0 or 1st level."

I do equate HP to physical damage, as I've made clear in previous posts.  But just to recap my basic premise here, I don't see severe damage occurring until getting down to the last few hit points that a character has.  Up until then it is nicks, cuts and bruises, or at least nothing which disables the combat value of the participant.

This means that I view the original hit points that a character receives to be mostly made up of body mass and physical condition, and later hit points gained to be made up of quickness and experience.  Allow me to demonstrate by metaphor.

Now, I wish I had a better one, but hopefully this will do the trick.  Consider, if you will, the game of hockey.  The net is a rather small target, made smaller by the presence of the goalie, and its easy to miss.  But as you improve your aim and your overall ability to play (and control the bouncing, annoying puck), it gets easier and easier to hit that net.  In fact, if you consider the task in terms of perception, the net posts get wider and wider, the better you play.

If I can apply this to hit points.  The goal posts are, effectively, the first hit point and the last hit point possessed by the character.  While the character's level increases, it is not the physical body that takes more damage, but rather that weapons and attacks upon the player are lessened in comparison.  In other words, the sword might touch the arm of a 1st level fighter and it might touch the arm of a 10th level fighter, but the higher level will have learned how to sweep the sword aside in combat without being cut, while the lower level will get cut every time.

Another way to think about it would be to say that the weapons do less and less damage to higher level characters ... but game-wise, this is impractical.  You can't be asking, what die do I roll for a long sword against an 8th level ranger?  There's too many possibilities, and the dice are not flexible enough.  By increasing the hit points instead, we can pin-point the reduced effects of every weapon (and spell) at one and the same time.

Thus, while Armor Class may not change, and it may be as easy to hit a 10th level fighter in chain as a first level fighter, it is much harder to make a significant blow against the 10th level.  And as hit points go up, the significance of each blow is lessened.

This seems eminently simple to me.  Whereas hit tables and even the time-to-death table I made mention of in my previous post are really impractical where it comes to complicated, extensive combat scenarios.

Once again, I wasn't so much bad-mouthing the use of hit points, but instead insisting that ordinary individuals deserved, on the whole, a greater survival potential than a mere d4.

Tougher than d4

People have this rather silly idea that human beings - especially 'normal' human beings - are easy to kill.  For example, this post from JB's blog, B/X Blackrazor, explains that normal human beings are those that are non-heroic, non-adventuring and non-combat-worthy.  These people only have 1 to 4 hit points, says JB, and why?  Because, quote, "They can all be killed, fairly easily, by the single blow of a hand weapon."

I'm a little confused by that.  Particularly when I consider the story of Michel Auger, a journalist who was shot six times in the back during an attack outside his newspaper office in the year 2000, and yet managed to survive.  Three of the bullets that hit him were so deep that doctors were unable to remove them.  Impressive, since Auger was 56 at the time he was shot.  Then again, bullets aren't really very dangerous, are they?

That story was the first thing that occurred to me upon reading JB's post ... and it's hardly unique.  The Biography Channel (I don't own a television, but I found it with 90 seconds of research on the Internet) has a television program based on ordinary people surviving everyday events that we'd expect them to die from.

I myself once went over the handlebars of a bike, down a twenty-foot cliff, landing on the top of my spine right between my shoulders (I tucked my head).  But I'm sure that wasn't more than 1 hit point of damage.

I think that an open forum asking people to tell tales of when they were stabbed or shot or struck would get an impressive array of answers, which would bring into question whether it was 'fairly easy' to kill us.

Fat and lazy we may be, but the human body is a surprisingly resilient machine where it comes to taking damage.  When we consider the most widespread cause of weapon damage, War, we must remember that most of the time it is not the weapon that kills.  Human beings do not have half their arm blown away by a bullet and then fall down dead.  What they do is fall down, bleeding, suffering, and usually for a long, long time.  This is one of the wonders that has made medical practice on the battlefield remarkably possible.  We don't die at once.  We can be shipped, packed with bandages, and even stored while waiting our turn to be surgically operated on.  It's called triage.  It says that yes, you've just lost your leg, but you're strong enough to wait five hours because we've got to work on this guy's chest, and then that guy's belly.  Here's some pills, we'll get right to you.

So realistically, characters and NPC's ought to be designated a 'time variable' to indicate how long it will take them to die from a particular weapon blow.  Because, after all, if the person can be gotten to a cleric with cure critical wounds within that variable time frame, it shouldn't matter what damage they've soaked up.  If a 20th century healer with drugs and tools can sort out your perforated lung, chipped liver and loose arteries with hard work after shuttling you ten miles from the nearest battlefield (never a comfortable trip), a bit of magic ought to manage nicely.

The problem with these rather thoughtless hit point proposals, that a human being can take this damage or that damage because I've sat cleverly in my chair without any medical training and said so, is that the only contribution they make to the game is to further videofy it.  Hey, player, don't worry about farmers and bakers, or that scribe, you can butcher them without much trouble because you're a Great He-Man Hero.  Swing your sword once and snickity-snick, they're done for!  My my, it's like cutting down weeds, say what?

Well, you know what, fuck that.  You just go ahead and try to put that sword into my 62-year-old uncle's gut.  He's done nothing all his life but drive a tractor and milk cows, just like all the other farmers in that part of the world, but somehow I think when he grabs your hero's throat in one hand - the hand that's as big as both of mine put together - you're going to get a big fucking surprise.


Hands that resent adventure, haven't killed anyone and lack heroics


Physically, human beings ... even normal ones ... are capable of all kinds of miracles.  Shove that up your d4 hit points.

Contractor

I am still upgrading my equipment tables along the lines of my next to last post, and in the process I've unexpectedly stumbled upon an interesting concept, having to do with this table:

The purpose of the table is to allow players to pick and choose from the various features, and thus design their homes or castles, increasing the thickness of walls as necessary and so on.  But the purchasing table allows for something I'd never remotely considered before.

Note, if you will, that the Purchasing side indicates what the local town (according the principles I described in the earlier post) is interested in buying.  And note that the products in this case are not things that are easily carried.  For example, the town is looking to buy 4 sections of roadway, 30' long and 10' wide.  The town is willing to pay 155 g.p.

In other words, the town needs a road to be built - or possibly rebuilt - and at present there's no one in town who's able to build it.  See?  The selling side indicates clearly that no road-building can be bought.

Oho!  All that is needed is a capable, willing party - including one that's a mason - to spend some time laying out the necessary road and earn for themselves 620 g.p.  Not only that, but apparently the town is looking for a plasterer, some wallbuilding and even a sculptor to do a little work on a freize (obviously, for 5 g.p., they're not looking for a high-quality artist).

Now, I'm not suggesting that ANY party has the slightest interest in this sort of contract work, but hold on a moment.  Just where exactly is this road that needs building?  Is it critical?  Would it encourage them to see the party as one of their own?  Or is it possible the road wanted it between a local high mucky-muck's house and the county throughfare?

Laughable it may be, but for a low-level party I see this table as an opportunity for connecting a player to the local area and a way to make some coin on the side without having to take someone down in an alley.

For a high level, I see it has the kernal of a longer, larger table, with many more objects added (a bridge, a tunnel, a wharf?), providing the basis for the Lord's followers to earn a steady income.  No, the player might rather adventure, but how about it if the secondaries spent the intervening summer rebuilding part of the city walls, or steadily laying a road to the next town?

Something I never intended, or thought about ... but here's the basis for calculating what it would pay.  And not for just in Masonry either, but for foodstuffs, mining, trapping, animal husbandry ... everything, in fact, because that's what my equipment table is meant to cover.  Everything.

No wonder I fuck around with these things.

Insurrection At Death Frost Doom

Death Frost Doom is a module produced by James Raggi, which was provided for me a little more than a week ago. This is my second review for a work of his. The first was written last week and can be read here.

Unlike that review, some of this writing will include very moderate spoilers, none of which will be genuinely understood by those who have not read or seen the module. However, the gentle reader should be able to obtain a sense for how the module runs, and how I and my party viewed it.

I ran this module, for my party, two days ago on Saturday. The reason I must allow for some spoilers is because my main purpose for writing this review is not only to give my impression of the module, but more specifically the party's impression. From the title of the post, you should be able to guess that the party did not take it well.

I decided to run this module of the other three I had available because a portion of my players characters is at present wandering its way westward through central Europe in late November, so an ice-cold, snowy adventure was in order. In order to 'encourage' my players to actually play the module - it was understood up front that I would be presenting it - I knew that there would have to be a certain degree of railroading the party into playing it. This is definitely not my style. However, it was done lightheartedly, and the players went along with it, with the understanding that this would not be typical.

Without getting at all deep into it, the 'hook' of the module is that there is a crypt/cult temple on top of a mountain that promises treasure. Player involvement is expected to be voluntary ... but for my party I whipped up a great two day blizzard that stranded them at Zeke's cabin, and used elements of the module to compel them to investigate the crypt or else suffer consequences.

The hook is delivered by a hermit Zeke Duncaster, who talks about how evil the crypt is, and how evil the area is around the crypt, and how many people were killed, and how horrific things are up around the cabin up the mountain, and so on. When I read the module, I found all of this terrifically interesting, and my first impressions of the module were very positive. I looked forward to sitting down and playing up the horror, of the various elements that would bring on the creepiness of the adventure. I considered the elements as they were laid out - at least above ground - to be creative, distracting and legitimately profound.

The party, however, did not think so.

When they learned that the hermit had been setting up grave markers for the thousands of dead, and that he'd been doing this for some time, living for decades nearby the site, the party answered, "Well, Zeke seems to have everything under control. Let's get the fuck out of here."

They wanted nothing to do with the site, with its treasure, or with any investigations thereof. It seemed like the stupidest idea in the world to go anywhere near the place, and they only did because I railroaded them. In any ordinary circumstance they would have moved on. But they doggedly turned to invest themselves in the module, without much complaining.

We talked it over at that point and the party's sentiments was that the horror played for the module was thing upon thing upon thing - to the point of stupidity. The party explained that they were not stupid teenagers in a slasher flick, but rather people who actually appreciated their lives and were smart enough to stay the fuck away from a place like that. "Why don't we just go to the next big city, tell a bunch of high level clerics that this thing is here and have them fix it?"

Which is, as I said in my previous review, the equivalent of pulling off the planet and nuking the place from orbit. As I encouraged them to go ahead anyway, they wanted to know, "If it is inside the borders of a powerful empire (and it is), then how is it our problem?"

Thus, the railroading.

Arriving on site with the initial part of the adventure, that which happens above ground, I discovered problem #2 with the module.

Virtually all of it is fiddling-dependent. By that, I mean that the description for virtually everything the players encounter depends upon player-motivated interaction. The module spends pages describing all these things, mostly saying, "If the players ..." do or touch or move or sleep or rest or try or whatever else. Here's the clock, here's the book, here's the tree, here's the well, here's the cabin, here's the painting, and if the players play with the stuff, it does this or that or the other thing.

Problem is, if the players don't do a goddamn thing, because their mammas didn't raise no stupid children, it takes about thirty fucking minutes to go through the entire first part of the adventure. And most of that is me reading descriptions. Describing the clock and describing the tree and describing the well and the cabin and what the hell else, while the players went "That's interesting." and then walked away without doing anything. I could talk about all the things they didn't do, but that would be giving spoilers about the module.  All I can say is that if the players don't fiddle with all the interesting compelling features in the adventure, NOTHING HAPPENS.

Now, maybe I missed something. Maybe I didn't describe the wondrous detail of the objects enough to encourage people to get interested in things ... except that I know from the party that it's more likely that I described things too well. I described the tree in detail, so the party didn't want to go anywhere near the thing. I described the book in detail, so the party treated it like a dangerously fragile explosive device. They didn't rearrange the furniture because they were scared out of their fucking wits ... and they wanted to get the hell away from the place for the same reason. Except they couldn't, because I was forcing them to stay.

Well they knew I was, didn't they? It's not hard to tell when a DM wants you to walk into a pre-written adventure ... suddenly it’s snowing or there's an army parked over the hill or someone gets kidnapped and the party has to go get him or whatever else forces you to stay. That's the whole thing with a DM. You know it's the DM ... and not a random, disconnected chance. So the truth about the module is PDC: the Party Doesn't Care.

And so they wouldn't play with anything and we zipped through this part. We had another discussion about that, i.e., does anyone want to investigate further, and the party explained that no, they saw no real value in doing that, it seemed a stupid thing to do and no way were they going to 'try' things they found. I guess they must love their characters.

So we had a break, and began part two, underground.

Well, here the module lapses into an age-old module formula: put the players to sleep. Have the players stagger around in empty room after empty room, until they are so goddamn tired of walking into rooms and searching around and finding nothing, they get careless and do something stupid, getting themselves killed.

Holy shit did the party complain.

Continuous cries of "What the fuck!" and "Give me a fucking break!" and "Of course it’s another fucking empty room!" went on for quite some time. Between mapping and problem solving and reading descriptions, while trying to give any semblance of mystery and time and place, we spent an hour and a half staggering around rooms, most of them steeped in anciently spilled blood. Once again, the party refused to fiddle with anything. They made quite a few references to video game mechanics - which work off the same basic formula - and taking note of the various stages with the battle cry, "Congratulations, you have solved the puzzle that allows you to enter the Main Puzzle!"

They were bored out of their ever-loving minds - and so was I.

It isn't much fun as a DM to just describe and describe shit, with none of it being interactive. There was no chance for dialogue, no chance for a freaking mouse to attack the party, just nothing. Whatever creepiness and sense of doom that was at least hinted at on the surface died an ugly death in the subterranean. For those who have the module and thus the map, consider that the party repeatedly chose 'left' at every crossroads, that being the principle that they employed towards mapping the place out. And because they went left, left, left, they missed the other big horror in the module that would have made them want to do exactly what they had wanted to do from the very first event: leave. But I won't spoil what that is for those who don't know. Ask your friends.

The final blow was Room 18. I won't go into detail, but the room requires the DM to pull a rather cheap trick on the player characters, with - in the opinion of everyone present - completely stupid results. I wondered how the party was going to respond to it. The overall effect is that it’s supposed to create a moment of panic for everyone, as they try to control one member of the party doing something completely insane. It might have worked, if the motivator for the event hadn't been quite so lame (sorry, no other word for it) ... but after the sheer boredom the party had been tolerating up to that point, an insurrection was staged.

And I mean the party literally rose from the table and refused to play any further. So I called the session closed and bought everyone off with some experience points - in spite of no combat and hardly any dice rolling, none of which  occurred at any point in the session. This mitigated their ill feelings towards the module and towards ME somewhat.

So the rest of the night, about another two hours, included:

• Me explaining everything they missed (not particularly helpful in making them appreciate the module).
• Everyone bitching about why modules suck and why they will always suck.
• And a refusal to play another module again, period.

So I won't be fulfilling the plan I had to run in one of Mr. Raggi's modules, simply because at this point I have no DM in my acquaintance willing to run it. I feel that overall I would have been more patient with the empty rooms than my party was, but that's mostly because I'm more familiar with modules, I would be well aware of the module's intentions and because, well, I'm older and used to coping with boredom. That's what happens when you get older - you spend so much time dealing with unfilled time, you get better at amusing yourself.

It makes me wonder about the positive feelings I had about the first module I reviewed. Does it play as well as it reads? Mr. Raggi claims to play-test his modules and I do not doubt him, but I think I need to add a rejoinder that if your party is used to being in control of their activities, question whether or not this, or any module, is for them.

UPDATE:

For those who still come to view this review, even though it has been four years, I would like to direct you to this point-by-point assessment of the same module.  In it, the author confirms much of what I've written above.  The author also reminds me of many, many idiotic parts of the module that I did not take the time to write upon.  I appreciate greatly that the author has given me some insight as to why people like the module - mostly for reasons that do not reflect well on those people.

Finally, I should like to express my immense satisfaction in there being another person in the world that is able to recognize the module for the garbage that it is.

November 14, 2014

Widening The Equipment Table

Back in July I proposed to limit the availability of goods on my equipment table, which I've worked at casually these last few months.  I believe I've got a system now that works, something that would guarantee that goods produced in or near the market would always be available, while things farther away became increasingly rare.

The simplicity in the system is that I make no attempt whatsoever to describe the 'supply' of the item, nor its local demand.  I argue that such things do not need to be computed, if we reason that scarcity is controlled by the relative cost of the item (players will be unable, or willing to buy items even if they are available) and abundance controlled by the general nature of the system, which can be examined here.  It is not generally understood by tourists of Economics that 'demand' is a product of the industrial revolution, and not a consideration in mercantalist systems ... given that the world was quite used to demand not being met and the starvation of helpless people being a commonplace thing.  Of course people demanded things, but the middle class had yet to be invented and mass-production did not exist.  It did not matter if more people in a town demanded shoes, for instance, since the shoemaker could not increase his output and the number of skilled shoemakers in the world were finite ... to invent new shoemakers out of thin air was not something that could be done as easily as putting up a factory and having machines built that would do the job.

I often encounter an insistence that modern production/economic rules must apply to non-industrial societies ... a thinking box which suffocates many attempts to create a fictional medieval trade economy.  The simulation immediately seems vast, with endless variables - when in fact most of those variables aren't applicable.

But enough about this.

All we want is to be able to say whether or not the product is available, and how many of the item the player can buy or sell.

Towards that end, have a glance at the three images below:

(Wouldn't you know I'd screw up the graphic?  The Purchasing block should read No. / Price / Unit)

The table is divided in two parts, the first being what a player would normally see as an equipment table, the second being the number of things which this luthier would pay to buy, and how much the luthier would pay.  Note that there are changes in the tables, but not excessive ones ... and the bigger change is in what the luthier will buy, rather than what he has to sell.  Note also that some products are always rare, and unavailable, except when you're actually in the region that produces that object.  If you want violins, you'll have to visit Italy.

These are all from the same location (at present the mean location for everywhere, so a place that doesn't exist), and would represent a different moment in time.  The idea is that it presents not the number of items available in the town, but the number of items the players can find in the space of one day ... or week, I haven't quite decided.  Just because there might be four times as many lutes in a particular town doesn't mean the party has found those other lute shops while schlepping themselves around.  And yes, generally the lute shops all tend to be on the same street (although this was not always so, though it was common), it still doesn't mean that the lutist isn't working on an order for someone else, or that someone didn't just come in and buy up all his stock five minutes ago.

The important thing is that the supply is limited ... and that if the party finds a treasure that includes fifty lutes, they may have to search through the town for quite a while to eventually unload them all (particularly if I make the time frame a week).

A side note ... the table is intentionally created so that some objects can be both for sale and for purchase - if it so happens the luthier is short on those things.  Note the price will allow the luthier to make a little coin on the exchange.

Something else about this table and its importance.  I plan to build my treasure tables out of the same figures (I think I can see just how to do that now) ... which means that the most likely treasure will also be items that are plentiful in the local area - and therefore, not something the local merchants will be interested in buying.  Which is only natural.  The local orcs will be most likely to steal barrels of ale if the local industry is a brewery, shipping barrels of ale out along the local roads.  And if the party kills the orcs, and gets back the barrels - whose barrels do you think they are?  You expect the local merchants to buy the barrels back?

I'm liking the system.  I'm still calculating the numbers for the 1,300 goods and services involved, both sales and purchasing, which is mostly at this point a lot of formatting to make it all look pretty and easily edited later when I want to add MORE things.  I can see other ways to fool with it, and additional complications I can add later, if I want to - but that's probably something I'll leave for a couple of years.  This is enough of a change for now.

There are always other projects beckoning.