22nd Class: Player Function & View

Good day. I’ll start with apologies for the trouble that disrupted the last class. Let’s begin again by first re-examining some of the things that I said at the beginning of this course, regarding how, for some games, the quality of play does not determine it’s nature. At that time, we established two parts of the game that did not require experience or expertise from the players of role-playing games: the character creation and combat.

I’d like now to add two more core parts of the game that do not require expertise and yet ARE absolutely essential to play. The first is “role-playing.” I don’t mean “character” playing and I don’t mean acting or speaking in character. Those elements can be a part of the game but they don’t have to be a part. By “role-playing,” I mean that the player must assume a function inside the game setting that’s presented – not necessarily a “class” or a “skill-set” as we often argue about, but simply an animated force that exists inside the frame of the setting.

This means that if the player dictates that their character crosses a street in the setting, we can envision the actuality of that fabricated character changing its imaginary physical position. The essence of moment-to-moment game play consists of that character’s “physical” relationship to everything else. We cannot play without this.

This, as with character creation and combat, does not require expertise either. Anyone can state they are crossing a street, going to the next town, speaking to an NPC, waving a sword in the air or anything else we might specify our character is doing.

The other element is the player’s “world view.” We talked about this with our last class, with relation to the DM, but the player also has a world view. This view is central and absolute where it comes to the player’s perspective of the game. How the player sees the setting, and the DM’s manipulation of that setting, determines the player’s investment, immersion and enjoyment of the game. If the player’s worldview is challenged, frustrated or abused, the player will not be able to play.

That is because the role-playing game happens in the player’s head. Where a first-person shooter enacts upon the player’s senses, so that game success depends upon a reflexive response ~ fast enough to kill without being killed ~ the role-playing game can be paused at any time, for as long as we like, without any effect to game play. We might argue that a disrupted game full of dead time lacks momentum ~ which can be a problem ~ but play itself is unchanged no matter what momentum we adopt.

This kitty can take its time figuring out which
d20 it wants to throw.

If players want to view a moment in “slow motion,” they can. The combat round for the player characters may last only 12 seconds, but the players can spend any amount of time deciding what they want to do in those 12 seconds. Any dictate that rushes the player is arbitrary and is not a necessity of game play.

We make this point because we want to understand why a player feels an attraction for this game. I want to argue that the attraction is inspired by, but is not specifically dependent upon adventures, dialogues, characters, enemies or any other specific element of any particular setting. The attraction is the challenge the player feels when faced with a conundrum regarding whatever might be encountered in the game setting.

This is the central facet of the player’s world view, or view of the setting. Are we intrigued? Are we compelled to investigate, inquire, organize, prepare ourselves, seek new situations and so on. In short, are we as players interested in manipulating our functional game pieces through the complexity of this game board for the sake of untangling the difficult problems or questions that arise in our minds.

If there are no problems or questions, if we are not vexed or puzzled by what’s happening, if everything is plain as day and therefore lacks any need for us to involve ourselves with a solution, then there is no game.

As a DM, I know how the world works. We spoke about this in our 21st class. But as a player, I don’t know how anything works. I know what I see, I know what I want … I can sort of figure out some predictable frameworks and I can watch the DM’s face as I interact with someone in the game world to learn information about something. But constantly I am thinking, “What does this mean? Where does this go? If I choose this option, what happens? Should I prep this, or would that be an over-reaction. Should we risk going forward or is this the time to turn back.” I am constantly in the midst of questions in my mind … and each step forward I make is accompanied with thoughts like, “Okay, I hope this works, I’m not sure, I can’t think of anything else, this should be the right answer” and so on. I am testing, being frustrated when my hypotheses fail and thrilled when my hypotheses turn up factual information that advances my movement forward in the achievement of my goals.

The easiest, simplest arrangement of this thought-process is a linear arrangement of puzzles that, if the player figures them out, creates a trail of successes that lead to an overarching singular goal ~ what narrative writing calls “an adventure tale.”

The most complex, agonizing arrangement of this thought-process is a cacophony of uncertain and discontinuous clues that suggest no definite right answer, piled against a host of unavoidable consequences deriving from nothing but poor choices all ending in some kind of painful sacrifice ~ what narrative writing calls “a tragic drama.”

Both, plus a lot of other narrative options besides, are perfectly viable for a role-playing game … but one is vastly easier to construct, run, interpret and sell than the other, particularly for any DM who has little to no experience with character creation, human motivation, life experience, dilemmas, ethical doubts, real pain and personal loss, sacrifice or triumph. Describing, naturally, every person who learned to play their first RPG at an age less than 16 … and every person still playing an RPG who believes that the first games they ever played were the “best” games.

It is unlikely we will ever encounter a game module revolving around, say, the trials and loves of Anna Karenina, for purchase, that can then be adapted by a neophyte in the facts of life, then properly run for a group of players whose world views don’t include deciding whether or not to ostracize a family member who has been deleterious in her actions as a wife and her hedonism as a degenerate wife and mother. Nevertheless, there is not one element surrounding such a set of circumstances dictating that a role-playing game based upon conversations taking place in salons between participants in that drama would not exist as legitimate player activity.

We only say that “role-playing games are about running adventures” because so many of the participants have a very narrow conception of what makes human activity interesting.

Very well. Let’s consider these four elements of game play: character creation, character function, character worldview and combat as four intrinsic elements of play that no player is ever expected to master. There is no need for a player to master them. If the player fails, the player is allowed to play again. Most players DO expect to become better at the game; and all players who consistently play in well mastered games will get better through situated learning.

The only participant expected to master the game is the DM. The notion is right there in the title. This therefore brings us back again to the process of transforming the DM from a novice to an advanced beginner and so forth. That is where we will begin our next class.

Three Writers

Today I would like to share three great posts with you from three great writers in the role-playing blog genre, each of whom is on a quest for answers, not self-aggrandizement. Each of these three writers tries to take the game and the culture apart just as I do. I’d like to push them into your attention because they deserve the recognition for the work they’re doing: asking and addressing questions.

Being who I am, I’m not showcasing these people because I think it’s my responsibility to give what I can to others. That shit is bullshit. I’m pushing these people because I read them and I mostly agree with them, their battles and their ideas. And I think you ought to agree with them also. They are all readers of this blog from the same motives.

The first is JB of B/X Blackrazor. Recently he wrote an excellent post called We Don’t Care, challenging role-playing beliefs that characters need backstories, family, allies, enemies, all of that. His argument is firmly founded in the D&D game version that he supports wholeheartedly, that’s in his blog’s title. Death happens, people. That’s why we don’t get involved with characters at 1st level, we get involved with them when they’ve lived some.

“Playing D&D is not the theater. I have no need to understand my character’s background or motivation because I am not acting out a script and I am not reading someone else’s lines."

“Playing D&D is not about delivering an “authentic performance;” that isn’t the objective of game play. The objective is to have one’s character survive and thrive in the imaginary environment provided by the DM. And if the DM is pressing the players hard, providing situations that make survival difficult and thriving complicated, then the player is likely to experience the immersive type of game play that is unavailable in any other medium, outside of certain “First Person Shooter” games (and those only provide a similar experience in a limited, restricted sense). When players experience this type of game play, all the pseudo-storytelling write-ups in the world have little impact on how a PC behaves.”

This is a little understood truth about modern gaming that is not being vouched for by the company and is thus completely missed by thousands of players. D&D is a GAME … not a script. It is only about the character insofar as that character lives and breathes and has actual motivations in the world. Just as we live and breathe. Real life isn’t a script either. Most of us don’t imagine ourselves “role-playing” when we’re talking to our family and friends, going out for a beer, figuring out how not to confess something to the boss or asking the librarian to find us the book we want. When we do this for REAL, we’re invested in a lot more than what words or emotions we express when we ask for that book ~ we just want the book. We want to get past that thing with the boss and we want to relax over a beer as we bitch about the Seahawk’s last season. We’re not play-acting, like kids pretending to play house ~ we’re actually running real lives that produce real challenges to our survival and success. D&D isn't fun because we get to play nonsense characters with nonsense motivations; it’s fun because the challenges get to be HUGE, with world-shaking consequences and enormous triumphs.

JB hits all these beats bang on with his post and as a reader of the game, you’re starving yourself in the desert if you don’t go read his post and take something away with you.

Next, I’d like to bring your attention to Simon T. Vesper’s blog, ‘Crossing the Verse. I’m going ahead and out him here, as he’s already done it several times, and point out that he posts comments on this blog as Ozymandias. He’s been pounding out posts seriously on his blog since April 2017 and he’s really beginning to hit his stride; if you read his blog last year, go read it again. He’s stepped up his game and the posts are well worth reading.

Not too long ago, in November, he published On my disdain for the popular, a post he built on Innuendo Studios video about Phil Fish [link in Simon’s post]. Simon connects the argument made there about Nickelback, which we all hate, with the iconic footprint of the now much-lauded Critical Role … and does so brilliantly.

He patiently deconstructs exactly why, if Critical Role was your campaign being played out, it would suck. It would be boring. It would be frustrating.

“Eventually, ‘something’ happens. The players spend time doing ‘research.’ Amateur. Fucking amateur. I’m still waiting on anything that’s even remotely interesting. And not just as an audience member: as a player, I would be bored to tears. The wizard ~ a fucking wizard, someone who has spent literally years of his life in academia ~ knows fucking nothing about local politics or about the composition of a random bookstore. Like, this character should have taken one look at the interior of the shop and gone, ‘Yeah, there’s nothing here that will help me,’ and turned around and left. And that’s on the DM. ‘You see these books, you see the shopkeeper, you see the content and you’re like, ‘Deuces!'‘ And there’s a tiefling . . . rogue? bard? something like that . . . who does the ever-so-clichéd, ‘I mess with the library’s filing system,’ never mind the fact that there’s no way to physically do that without catching the shopkeeper’s eye because he’s there every damn day and what’s the likelihood that anyone is going to enter this shop, ever? Oh, but because it’s a skill check and you roll really freaking high, you get to do something that is literally impossible. All for the LOLz!”

Sure, I get that there are some people who do play games for the lolz. There are also trolls in the world who randomly decide to SWAT girls on the internet and think it’s really funny to build phone scamming programs that shut down city hospitals. Fucking around with skill checks is just the lazy version of dumbfuck horseplay for people who aren’t ambitious enough to be truly heinous … and for anyone who actually loves the game, they’re toxic, miserable shit-heels that aren’t wanted.

But on YouTube, they’re celebrities. Because, hey, they’re not bothering anyone.

Simon breaks it down piecemeal with a patient, self-reflective voice that is becoming his persona ~ really hating something but cognizant enough to question why he really hates it and if he should really hate it. As a reader you owe it to yourself to follow through his logic structures here and on other posts, to get to the same places you want to go.

Last, we have the inefficaciously named “Drain” of Cruel & Unusual Punishment. Drain is a patient, methodical writer and a thinker with a very sharp Occam’s edge to his ideas and arguments. I know him a little better as one of the players in my online Juvenis campaign, but the writing of his blog, though sparse (25 posts last year) is patient and principled. His latest post at the time of this writing was Rules Musings – Restrictive Skill Checks, a title that belies the viciousness of the post.

I loved this; Drain takes a hatchet, then a scalpel to the permissiveness of 5th edition rules that are designed to let any character do anything, regardless of their class or supposed limitations. It is an indictment of the first order against the game design of the company, as it has evolved D&D into a sludge of entitlement and license to side-step even the largest of obstacles.

“A prospective reading of the AD&D ruleset to learn how it handled tracking brought along an eye-opener: barring any optional rules, only Rangers were allowed to track, period. DnD was ever a game to shine the light on niche protection, which makes sense if one wants a disparate ensemble of characters to be able to contribute to more than just the swelling of the party’s number and have the group coalesce into something greater than the sum of its parts; But whereas this was once enforced by some rather draconian (if arguably justified) strictures, with swathes of gameable content both accessed or walled off by a party’s play skill and the composition of its membership, the mainline currents of today’s no player left behind push for zero wasted “content” and are quite anxious that no detail, area, challenge or interaction be out of reach or missed amid the shuffle, so that a party should never fret for its lack of specialists: no one’s life is hanging in the balance, everything is perfectly and safely cordoned towards bringing you a warm, linear and comfy play experience.”

He continues thereafter into a breakdown of skill sets that players have, in an attempt to define categories as a means of avoiding the terror rabbit hole of trying to itemize every conceivable skill that any character in the game might possess. I confess, for anyone except the craziest person imaginable (and I have no idea who that might be, wink wink), it is far more practical to see skills in groups rather than the alternative. Drain presents his argument here not as a final solution, but as a guideline that might lead in that direction.

And this is the goal, I think, for anyone who wants to produce sound material about role-playing games and D&D. The answers that some of us want don’t exist out here on the frontier; they haven’t been built yet. We are doing no more than asking questions, just as questions were asked about any academic or worthwhile subject that has presented itself to human kind. Drain ends his post with the recognition that for the most part, though we ask, we don’t really expect an answer. There is no answer. But the question has to be asked just the same. The mental process has to be laid out. We have to examine what we’re doing here.

Quit reading the stuff you’re wasting your time with and work your way through Drain’s eminently worthy back catalog, taking the time to ask your own questions. That’s where it starts.

I am glad to find that I’m not alone out here with this philosophy.

5e: The Two and a Half Stumps of List Teases

“The adventure is the heart of the game, a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. An adventure might be created by the Dungeon Master or purchased off the shelf, tweaked and modified to suit the DM ’s needs and desires. In either case, an adventure features a fantastic setting, whether it’s an underground dungeon, a crumbling castle, a stretch of wilderness, or a bustling city.”

The reader will find this quote on the top left of page 8 of the 5th Edition Players Handbook, beginning the fifth page of explaining what the game is without factually explaining anything about actual game play. The writers have found it very difficult not to launch into lists of game fluff, and they don’t hesitate to do it here in this passage which is part of the heading (beginning on page 7) called “Adventures.”

Whatever D&D may have been once, or however it might have been played, the goal here is to bake the “adventure” right into the meat and potatoes of the game. Though above it says the adventure is the heart of the game, we’re also told that consists of characters embarking on an adventure and that a campaign IS a string of adventures joined together. There is no mention at all of characters “doing their own thing.” The setting is not free-form, it is not three dimensional, it is not flexible. It is THIS. You, dear reader, are expected to understand this completely.

The reason why every character is different is so that they will complement each other. And they must cooperate. That is the only way the adventure can be completed. It is all here on the page, in black and white.

Moreover, NPCs exist as characters in the play, described as “patrons, allies, hirelings or just background extras.” Make no mistake. This entire system is designed, like a Hollywood movie, to move the actors into the celebrity frame so that they can be the heroes of this picture. The only other entity mentioned who might have an actual agenda is the villain! And why is there a villain? Why, to drive the adventurers (players) action, of course.

None of this is new. The company has been hammering this point for ages now and we’re all familiar with it. If there is anything to say here, it is only this: before the release of 5e, the company opened the game to player input ~ and the players popularly asked the designers to untangle D&D’s famously convoluted ruleset. I remember very well the many blog posts written on the subject, and flame wars besides, about this very decision on the company’s part.

Given the company’s choices, we must assume A) that so few people expressed any interest in open gaming that the company felt it wasn’t worth mentioning it at all; B) the company carefully skewed the inquiries so it was impossible to give any answer that wasn’t about adventure-based gaming; C) the company, having games to sell, doesn’t actually give a shit.

I’m going to go with C. After all, we’ve been very sure to include a line about purchasing adventures … and since every list describing adventures (it may be this, or this, or this, or this, or this) that’s appeared in the introduction so far sounds like a sales pitch for something the company is selling, I think my guess is likely.

Moving on. Still on page 8, we’re next introduced to “The Three Pillars of Adventure.” I’m beginning to love this sort of passage in this book, because … well, that’s not important.

Our three pillars are Exploration, Social interaction and Combat. The description under “exploration” is essentially a rehash of a description two pages back:

“Exploration is the give-and-take of the players describing what they want their characters to do, and the Dungeon Master telling the players what happens as a result. On a large scale, that might involve the characters spending a day crossing a rolling plain or an hour making their way through caverns underground. On the smallest scale, it could mean one character pulling a lever in a dungeon room to see what happens.”

Not only have we covered this, we’ve been told that the play of D&D essentially IS this, in the “how to play” section. But now we’re going to be told something else, that play also includes social interaction and combat.

I have heard of writing a book by committee; I think this is the first example I’ve come across that reveals book editing by committee.

Social interaction is obviously role-play; but for whatever reason, confusion in using role-play to describe talking as your character and as the adjective to describe the game, we’ve decided to go with “social interaction” instead. Let’s have a read:

“Social interaction features the adventurers talking to someone (or something) else. It might mean demanding that a captured scout reveal the secret entrance to the goblin lair, getting information from a rescued prisoner, pleading for mercy from an orc chieftain, or persuading a talkative magic mirror to show a distant location to the adventurers.”

Another list of possible adventures ~ it is the only kind of description we know. Please notice, however, that there is something strange in this list of four examples: all three describe talking to creatures in order to GET something.

Is there no other reason to talk to creatures? Does it mean breaking bread with the scout and talking about friends and family back home? How about helping the rescued prisoner get over their shock and trauma by asking what we can do? Does it include spitting in the face of the orc chieftain while we tell him to shove his mercy? Though, okay; I’ll concede that last. There’s only one way to talk to magic mirrors.



If it's going to be adventure all the time, however; and if that adventure puts you in the star chamber and everyone else is basically a servant of the plot, then NPCs only exist to provide you with that crucial exposition you desperately need. So why not smack around a scout or hang a wretched prisoner from his ankles over a dungeon chasm? Why not grovel for your pathetic life in front of an orc chieftain, knowing he’s going to let you live (you are, after all, the star of this film – and the orc chieftain is supposed to die on page 41 anyway). Why not go Captain Kirk with a magic mirror until you convince it to give you the info you need and then kill itself in an apoplectic philosophical fit. Why in hell would you ever just talk to anyone? They can’t even remember that you said cappuccino and not latte.

“Combat … involves characters and other creatures swinging weapons, casting spells, maneuvering for position, and so on ~ all in an effort to defeat their opponents, whether that means killing every enemy, taking captives or forcing a rout.”

Lists, lists, lists. So, basically combat is the ultimate in social interaction: getting what you want without having to talk. Good. Plain, simple, straight to the point … whether you’re doing this, or this, or this, or this, or this, or this …

Combat, however, ends with this:

“Combat is the most structured element of a D&D session, with creatures taking turns to make sure that everyone gets a chance to act. Even in the context of a pitched battle, there’s still plenty of opportunity for adventurers to attempt wacky stunts like surfing down a flight of stairs on a shield, to examine the environment (perhaps by pulling a mysterious lever), and to interact with other creatures, including allies, enemies, and neutral parties.”

Um.

Uh, yeah.

I so can’t wait to see the “structured” rule that explains how surfing down a flight of stairs on a shield works. Or other wacky stuff.

It is bits and pieces like this that seriously challenge my willingness to take much of what I’m being told at face value. I appreciate that it is turn-based system; but was it really necessary to describe the system as “everyone gets to take their turn”? How is that visually helpful? Could we not have rather said, “To effect an ordered, practical system of resolving battles, the game employs a turn-based system similar to chess. While a mechanical departure from realism, the method enables many complex elements to be controlled by the participants of the game, while adding features that give the feel of immediate, simultaneous interaction.”

Nope. We “take turns,” ensuring “Everyone gets to play,” because what really matters with combat is that no one feels left out. Oh, and we get to swing weapons and kill every enemy.

This is what we call a “tone problem.” It’s a situation where your writing pisses on your own writing in a way that makes the emotional moment you’re trying to create sound very silly and squicky. Like letting your 73-year-old grandmother read excerpts from porn sites aloud in church.

That’s why my heart doesn’t race when the writer mentions “a mysterious lever” 17 words after using the phrase “wacky stunts.” It just makes me think, wow … you need a paper towel?

Sorry for writing another of these posts. I have to admit, I really wanted to know what the next part of the book was going to talk about and I’ve promised myself not to read anything of the book unless I’m going to write on it immediately upon reading. I want all my blog reactions be “in the moment.” So if I want to know what fucked thing the book is going to say next, I have to write the blog post as I read.

It’s a motivation technique.

Forward in the Opposite Direction

It is hard to stop on any journey and realize that to go further on, we will have to forsake the route we've taken and retrace our steps.  Yet that is a reality of adventuring on any frontier, where there are no guideposts or even a clear destination we can see.  That is what I've had to do with my former 22nd class for role-playing.  I've abandoned it and changed the title of the post.

Queerly, as things happen, I had been designing that post in my head for about three months before it came time to write it; and now, after a week, I've come to realize that I should have abandoned that line of thinking before I arrived.  But as I said, we hump our rucksack up a river valley, hoping we'll find a pass that gets us to the other side of this mountain range ... and then find there isn't one there.

The post rang off-key as I was writing it.  I've tried to consider the next post after and it feels like a worse derivation still.  I'm clearly moving in the wrong direction; and watching a particular video this afternoon put it plain and simple for me.  Or rather, it highlighted everything I'd already been thinking.  Brian Upton is a good speaker ~ I strongly recommend watching lots of his stuff if you're interested in game design.  This video features him at his pragmatic best:



And to this, I want to be sure to post the "Red Flag List" that's found immediately under the video:

1. I don't give a crap about your back story.

2. I don't give a crap about your inventory system either.

3. I'm not going to design your game for you.

4. Pillars are not hooks!

5. You never explained what the player does.

6. Don't use realism to excuse bad design.

7. You don't need a framing device if it's not necessary.

8. Is it really a game, or just a knockoff?

9. You never mentioned your glaringly obvious tech risk.

10. Your proof of concept does not prove your concept.

11. Having lots of shitty art doesn't make them less shitty.

12. I can't tell what's placeholder and what's not.

13. You polished too early.

14. Your sample dialog sucks.

15. You're pandering to the latest tech craze.

16. You just pitched a phone game to a console publisher.

17. You're making a Gone Home/Minecraft/PUBG ripoff.

18. You want us to negotiate a risky IP deal for you.

19. I know more about your monetization than your mechanics.

20. You have no idea how much money/people/time you need to make this thing.

21. You don't have a team.

22. Your business plan is based on outliers.

23. You seem like you'd be a huge pain in the ass to work with.

24. You expect me to know who you are.

25. You're annoyed that I'm asking questions.

26. We're trying to watch the pitch on your phone.

27. You brought a laptop, but no headphones.

28. You're hungover/drunk/high.

29. Don't trash other games/companies/developers.

30. You need to take a shower.

Look hard at that list.  I did.  As I listened to Upton break it down.  If we're going to make a game, or run a role-playing game, we're on the hook to answer every one of these questions, without handwaving.  Our players, and we ourselves, deserve real answers here.

While I'm not going to break down this list as I pick up a rewrite of the 22nd class, some of what's above is going to be in my mind as I rebuild my forward going outline.  I don't treat this as a failure; I don't treat this as anything except forward movement, even as I backtrack and reconsider.  This is how design happens.

5e: Game Dice

"The game uses polyhedral dice with different numbers of sides. You can find dice like these in game stores and in many bookstores.

"In these rules, the different dice are referred to by the letter 'd' by the number of sides: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20. For instance, a d6 is a six-sided die (the typical cube that many games use).

"Percentile dice, or d100,  work a little differently. You generate a number between 1 and 100 by rolling two different ten-sided dice numbered from 0 to 9. One die (designated before you roll) gives the tens digit, and the other gives the ones digit. If you roll a 7 and a 1, for example, the number rolled is 71. Two Os represent 100. Some ten-sided dice are numbered in tens (00, 10, 20 and so on), making it easier to distinguish the tens digit from the ones digit. In this case, a roll of 70 and 1 is 71, and 00 and 0 is 100."

These are popular posts, and as I don't have anything else ~ except monsters ~ that's ready to go just now, I'll venture into the world of dice from the 5th Edition Players Handbook.  If at all possible, I'll try to resist the nitpicking of the last post ~ but I have to say, it is very, very hard not to point out when people who are supposedly professionals have so little idea how to express their subject material.  Anyway, we're still on page 6, bottom right.

I just had to use this phenomenal, super-quality high-
resolution image from this book published by a
subsidiary of Hasbro four years ago.  We don't see
this kind of quality work from a former Fortune-500
company every day.

Two quick points on the above, and forgive me if I'm already breaking my promise to not nitpick.  Throughout the introduction, there are seveal points where the makers have clearly relied on the reader to know something about RPGs, since what they've said would make so little sense to a newcomer.  In the above, however, suddenly the reader needs to be treated as a pre-schooler.  Let's be honest.  Most people who have bought this book will be unable to see the wall of dice that surrounds every cash till in every game store, everywhere.  What gamestore clerk won't ask, "Do you want dice with that?" like a MacDonald's employee asking if you want fries?  I grant that some children will have this book bought for them ~ presumably by parents who already know their kids are into this ~ but still, I'm sure the dice will be in the Christmas stocking with the book.  The passage above, therefore, is written solely for the few people who are buying this book completely blind ~ who have no one to tell them what a d20 is.  I understand how that is a thing in 1979.  But today?  With the internet?

But I pity the makers of the book having to explain 10-sided dice "numbered in tens."  It takes a whole long paragraph to explain the d100 and it is agony.  From the moment I first saw them, I hated those fucking two-digit d10s.  I put up with them because they're everywhere ... but they absolutely fucking suck.  I am content to use two ordinary ten-sided and identify one as the 10s.  But we know ... we fucking know ... how these two-digit dice came to be.  Assholes.  That fucking guy who would dig in tooth and nail that on this one occasion, the green die was the 10s and the blue die was the 1s ~ though we knew as a DM that every other fucking time it was the reverse.  This two-digit tens thing was to subvert that bullshit.  Everyone knows it.

The book spends an entire page discussing dice here and says not one word about etiquette.  Now, I've deliberately not read ahead in the book.  I don't want to know what's next.  This is part of the fun for me, writing these posts.  So if we talk about dice cheating later, that's great, but it really ought to be here in this section.

After we learn how the dice work, we begin with the heading, The D20:

"Does an adventurer’s sword swing hurt a dragon or just bounce off its iron-hard scales? Will the ogre believe an outrageous bluff? Can a character swim across a raging river? Can a character avoid the main blast of a fireball, or does he or she take full damage from the blaze? In cases w here the outcome of an action is uncertain, the Dungeons & Dragons game relies on rolls of a 20-sided die, a d20, to determine success or failure."

I suppose it would be quibbling to say that we use the other dice to determine uncertain outcomes; I do think they're trying to say that where a physical/mental attempt is being made of some kind, we'll use the d20.  2nd Edition laid the groundwork for this and 3rd Edition went nuts with it.  Since what I remember from people playing 3rd Edition was how dependent the game was on this singular feature ~ and how annoying it was to calculate it ~ I'm surprised to find it remains part of the game.  This is part of what makes me think of 5e as the child of 3e, and not a return to the old game ... but admittedly, I haven't read the book yet so let's reserve that opinion.

I think in game terms, it's a mistake.  I see the "common sense" in thinking, let's make a random check to see if the ogre believes this ~ but in practice as a DM I've always taken the position, "Would anyone in this position, with their agenda and responsibilities, at this time, looking at these player characters, believe this mound of shite?  To which the answer ~ particularly if a bluff is "outrageous" ~ is NO.  Absolutely not.  But players, I know, adore the success of really ridiculous lies, and consider this one of the great triumphs of the game ... and so I know that when I say I'd slam that door, many readers would cry foul, DM fiat, etcetera.  But here's the thing.  If you reward a particular kind of behaviour with a die roll that has a reasonable chance of success, you encourage that behaviour.  And soon, every interaction with every NPC becomes a challenge in how outrageous can we make the lie.  That, for me, isn't the game.  For me, the challenge shouldn't be, can you pull your shit out of the fire with a poorly inspired yet die-dependent fabrication?  The game should be, can you avoid getting your shit in the fire.  If you need a brobdingnagian lie to get out, you've already fucked up ... and you deserve the consequences.

Yes, that is my word for the week.

However, for 5e, circumstantial bonuses and penalties are the order of the day ... because every action deserves a pass/fail die roll.  And that is based on some time-honored features of the game.  Combat was built so that there was always the chance that Bard the Bowman could hit the target he needed at that moment in time.  The fireball was built to do half damage to the lucky ones, because it was reasonable to argue that fire, and the way it behaves, would rush into existence as tongues of flames and not as a perfectly distributed gaseous cloud of eradication.  Fireball was built that way because it was a 3rd level spell and, while the inventor wanted effectiveness, it needed to be tempered in a way that would annoy the player's mage when the fireball didn't kill the adversary, and please the player when the player's character didn't actually die.

3e took that to the point where "chance" got, well, silly.  If my character can swim, the player argues, then surely there's a chance of swimming across this raging river.  The problem with that logic is that, *if you knew anything about swimming, you'd know better than to try.  You'd know that a raging river is full of kinetic energy and rocks, and if you plunge into that, you're gonna die.  It takes an idiot to think they can swim a river like that.

The player, however, will argue, "But lots of expert swimmers and skiiers drown!  That proves they thought there was a chance."  Actually, no.  We have a little thing in human behaviour called "hubris."  It is a disease very common among a particular kind of expert, who does get themselves into a place where, as a swimmer or a skiier, they think they can do anything.  If we're going to invoke it, we should understand how it works.  If your character looks at a raging river that is going to kill them, and thinks, "I can swim that," then go on, plunge in.  You will die.  Because there's no way that river isn't going to kill you.  But if your character thinks, "I think I can swim it," then you're not suffering from hubris.  As a DM, that's when I step up and so, you can't, because that river is going to kill you.

It is very, very rare for a swimmer to misjudge their abilities ~ because that's what being an expert means.  Knowing your abilities.  In reality, if it is possible for you to swim that river, and you look at it and ask, "Is it possible to swim that river," then the chance of swimming that river is 99.9% or better.  It isn't 50/50.

But these are fine points.  Too fine for most players, who want to handwave actions, thoughts, patters of behaviour, abilities, skills, limitations and what else, usually under the rubric of "fantasy" and sometimes under the heading, "fun."  The bonus/penalty pass/fail model was voted by the fans of 5e's launch because it is insanely popular with that kind of player that wants to play craps with a character's life and win.  For all the people who claim "role-playing" and not "roll-playing," this one overarching feature gets a pass.  Don't tell me MY character can't swim that river.  I have this strength, this dexterity and +5 of that!  Give me a die!

Nor can we solve the problem by making the rivers placid and slow, or the animal's skin marshmallowy and paper-thin, or the bluff plain and iron-clad in its logic.  We still have to roll.  That's the humour of it.

Those examples, however, are not nearly as much fun to quote when discussing how the dice work.

Bringing us to Advantage and Disadvantage.  I can't say much.  I've never played by this rule; I've heard it expressed hundreds of times in online game play.  The sheer proliferation of the skill makes me suspicious.  I will have to wait until chapter 7.  But ... in case I forget to mention this later ... why isn't there a chance to have a super-advantage, where you roll 3 dice?  What about a hyper-advantage, where you roll 4?  Or a mondo-excessive-adjectival-califragilistic advantage where my character gets to roll twenty 20-sided dice.  That would be cool.

I'm winding this down now.  There's this passage that follows ... it has nothing whatsoever to do with dice, but the heading indicates it is included in the dice section of the introduction.  So, editorial faux pas there.  Anyway, it has the quote, "If a specific rule contradicts a general rule, the specific rule wins."  There's no attempt to define the difference between a "general" rule or a "specific" rule; just a reference to each.  The example given: "... many adventurers don't have proficiency with longbows, but every wood elf does because of a racial trait," isn't actually a conflict of any kind.

I can write a grammatically similar sentence: "Many people don't know how to cook, but every qualified cook does because of education," and it can be seen immediately that what many people don't know how to do is irrelevant.  No rule has been broken.

The next example is the same: "... an adventurer can't normally pass through walls, but some spells make that possible."  Yeah.  They're spells.  That's how technology works.  People can't normally fly, but airplanes make that possible.  Magic isn't an exception.  It's a feature.

I know I haven't read this book.  Did the writers?

Monster Writings

This is sort of human.  Doesn't really need
it's own monster page.

About writing these monster descriptions.  I've been considering a series of guidelines that I've tried to follow throughout.  Some readers might get some value out of such a list, so here goes:

1. Create a simple chart with details that will largely matter when describing the combat ability, size, shape, intelligence and location of the monster.  The chart should be simple to read and should not skip information that will appear in the text ~ especially the special attacks!

2.  Explain the chart.  Some things do not need explanation; some things can be codified and then explained on another page expressly for that purpose, such as describing what a "scattered" distributiion is or what is a "wet/dry tropic" [it's coming, I swear].  It's most important to explain the special attacks, how the monster fights and the general shape of the monster (height and weight plus the picture are not enough!).

3.  Describe the monster's habits.  What is it doing when it is not eating player characters?  When is it out and about, how does it get along with friends and family, where does it hang on Saturday nights and what rings its bell?  The monster has a motivation; it needs describing past how it uses its body to kill things.

4.  When appropriate, skip details about things that the players ~ and even most people in the game world ~ simply won't know about the monster.  A lot of monsters are so rare, or so powerful, that what it is doing on vacation is way out of general knowledge.  Drop a hint or two about the missing information, but don't feel every detail has to be hammered down.

5. Avoid getting cute with the amount of detail.  It sounds fun to give the monster additional nick names or describe how a particular culture worships the monster as a god, or even to go into detail about how it gives birth to others of its kind, but in game terms this is just useless information that needs to be plowed through when the players are waiting.  Describe the monster in sharp detail; the extra details can be added later, during the adventure or if the players actually witness such a birth.  Those details don't need to be in the rules.

6. Make the description match the picture.

7. Your players read, so expect them to read your monster descriptions. which is one more reason not to add too much color to the description.  Remind your players that your monsters are a guideline, because ...

8. Monsters have species.  Just because this manticore happens to have a long tail with spikes doesn't mean every manticore does.  A manticore can have a scorpion's tail, too.  So when the players think they've got a monster pegged, remind them that size, body type, peculiar habits, intelligence and motivation can differ.  The description is a guideline.

9.  Add pertinent details once the players become familiar with a particular monster.  The next monster I mean to write up is the killer frogs, or froglings, the online.  Since the players already know the creature, this is a good time to include all the additional information that has come up ... but since it doesn't mean its the last time that they'll find these things, so I need to keep that monster universality in mind.

10.  Every monster is dangerous.  Perhaps in a very different way, perhaps obliquely, but nevertheless dangerous.  Some are dangerous because the players won't see them coming, some because of some annoying ability they have and some because they appear in frightening numbers.

Why is dangerous important?  Because they're monsters.  They're not paper targets.  They're the nasty, unpleasant, murderous side of nature and everything the players are supposed to be terrified of meeting in a dark, cold landscape.  For me, I don't believe in XP farming by killing, say, rats.  There are no "safe" monsters.

Giant Frog

This post includes significant contributions from Tim Alberdingk Thijm. Thank you Tim.

These terrifying, immense frogs are known to inhabit jungle and deciduous forests from central and southern India to southern China and Japan, as well as being known throughout Indochina and the East Indies. They possess claws upon their feet, making it possible for them to burrow into soft earth, which they will do with great alacrity. They have been known to create extensive underground tunnels, up to ten feet in diameter, in Burma, Kampuchea and in northern Borneo. They do not possess the long tongues that their smaller cousins have.

Giant frogs have leathery bodies and large muscular arms. When they attack, they will swing only one claw against enemies ~ but either claw might be used in a given round. As nocturnal meat-eaters, they possess and extremely good night-vision and are a terror in forested regions at night. They will often partly bury themselves in soft loam, laying in wait and attacking prey as it passes. They rarely hunt prey.

Advantages

In combat, the first time it is struck (whether or not it is stunned), the giant frog will produce an ear-splitting croak. This will stun-lock all creatures within four combat hexes of the brobdingnagian monster for one round; those who then do not make saving throw against paralyzation will be deafened for 2-8 rounds thereafter, during which time they will be -2 in all their attacks (both to hit and damage). Each giant frog is able to produce this croak but once per day.

The giant frog is able to move well and swing its mouth and claw, but it is most dangerous for its ability to hop a distance of 25 feet, or five combat hexes. It requires 1 action point to do this, and the frog can expend an AP at any time to hop. The giant frog will not hop away from a fight or retreat at all, but will always fight to the death. It can attack enemies in mid-hop if it uses its first AP.

See Bestiary

Failing to Beat Them, Joining Them

This, as most of you will know from having seen them before, is a 360-degree video:



I draw your attention to it because of a comment that Zilifant made a few days ago, when I was discussing things I might do to build some interest in the blog and specifically my Patreon.  He suggested some actual video of me running D&D.

I brought that idea up to a friend of mine and participant in my offline campaign last night and received the answer, "Well you know, I recently picked up a 360-degree camera."

Now damn it, I find that very interesting.  It makes me wonder why no one has ever thought to apply the technology to D&D before, but we spent quite a lot of time discussing it last night and damn, if that doesn't sound like a really good idea.  As I write this, we're making some plans.

My friend has the techical side of it managed, so not my problem.  I have made some preliminary reach-outs to three people who run in my daughter's D&D world, but who have never run in mine or with me.  I say that because I'd like to make a video showing how I roll characters up for people, how I manage that dialogue in person and the general response players have at rolling and then having new characters.  Then I'd like to run them in a very simple adventure, which I'm contemplating, something that wouldn't last more than two hours.  Hopefully, we'd like to keep the whole video (probably put on youtube in parts) to under three hours.

I see it as an opportunity to demonstrate pacing and, obviously, at least one combat played out in real time.  That sounds like fun.  Still, I think that for a mere un-invested observer, it may not come off as exciting as hoped.  We'll have to see.

Here's the downside.  I would like to put such a video behind a pay-wall.  I could post it on public youtube and maybe get some interest, but my experience with youtube has not been positive in the past and I don't see much reason to go to a lot of effort for maybe 400 views.  Nor am I in a position to put up a youtube video of a campaign weekly.

Like the Masterclass, then, this content would be a BONUS over stuff I already make public.  And like with the Masterclass, I would post enough to provide at least some idea of the overall product: 20 minutes or so.

If I could count on a hundred viewers, that's not too bad.  I have asked my regular offline campaign if they'd accept being filmed in their doings and they've agreed.  This wouldn't be a one-off if it worked.  I might be able to encourage people to buy in for one month at a time, those months when I had a video to share.

Yes, yes, I know.  Critical Role is free.  But I don't have the money to raise the sort of capital C.R. does through t-shirt sales and other crap.  I don't ever expect to get famous doing this.  I have pretty much given up on anything I do being viral.  Nope, this a vanity project.  And just like putting on a play at a coffee house or a community center (which I've also done), it seems fair to charge a door price.

How much?  $1 makes it accessible to everyone.  $3 is comparable to the Masterclass blog.  $5 gives it cachet.  And $10 would seem to cut out a lot of people who might want to see it, but wouldn't be willing to go that far.

If blogger still did polls, I'd set one up; but they've stopped that feature.  So let me know in the comments, if you can be bothered to do so.

5e: How [sic] to Play

So here we are on page 6 of the 5th Edition Player's Handbook.  The heading reads, "Using This Book" ~ but in fact, the words below don't say anyting about actually using the book, but rather provides a fast overview on the contents.  I'm not a fan of overviews at the start of a book; they feel like filler to me.  But sometimes a publisher has a third of a page that has to be filled with something, so ...

We're told "Part 1" is about creating a character, and it lists off various races, classes, backgrounds, equipment, etc.  It's clear from the way the passage is worded that the publishers are well aware you already know how this stuff works.  It's sad to me that at the same time the introduction (which we're still reading) can at the same time go into spastic flourishes about the amazing game we're going to learn about, while simultaneously, patently, recognizing that you've already played it.  Meh.  About what I expect.

"Part 3" tells me we're going to use the last third of the book for spells again.  Spells take a lot of space.  Easily half the pages on my wiki are spells ~ though that's because I have the list ready made and I'm just trying to hammer out the rules surrounding those spells to make them clear, and to help the players use the text to keep me honest.  There are so many spells, I can't possibly remember every one ~ that is why we make law books, so that lawyers can go to the book and not to fallible human beings to find out what the law actually IS.  And still, when I read that part three will be about spells, I think, "Ugh. Spells."

"Part 2" is the most interesting; I'm guessing I will be coming back around again to this paragraph.  Let's quote it:

"Part 2 details the rules of how to play the game, beyond the basics described in this introduction. That part covers the kinds of die rolls you make to determine success or failure at the tasks your character attempts, and describes the three broad categories of activity in the game: exploration, interaction and combat."

Apparently, the introduction has been providing "the basics" for game play.  I surely hope the book is going to provide the rules for how to play.  I surely hope the die rolls are going to be covered.  I surely hope that the book will describe the three broad categories of exploration, interaction and combat.

[Damn.  I feel the need to point out that the quote above is not exactly the same as the words in the book.  I have taken out the Oxford comma, just as I always do when I quote stuff.  I hate the damn thing, just as I hate all mechanical additions to content to supposedly make writing clearer, when in fact the best way is to write better.  The thing eats shoots and leaves is a perfectly clear sentence, if you don't put a comma after "eats."  Why would you?  It if bothers you that much, why don't you say the thing eats sprouts and leaves, or leaves and buds, or it has a diet of shoots and leaves?  Unless, of course, your actual goal is to write a pedantic dumbfuck book with a catchy title that works on people who don't know how to fucking write.  Okay, okay, sorry.  This is about the tenth Oxford comma I've removed from this text and it gets to me]

I don't know if this book IS going to live up to these promises.  We'll just have to see.

That brings us to another wide-ranging promise, where we are told, "How to Play."  I am keen to learn.  Let me start by saying, I agree: the process does start with the DM describing the environment, though I prefer the word "setting."  The environment is a massive biophysical construct that actually describes more than what's immediately visible, but rather everything that exists, as an interdependent gross system that perpetually exists in a state of flux.  A setting is a specific location and place with a specific identity attached to that point on the map.  I get the feeling that this distinction isn't known to the editor, who probably treats these words interchangably.  Many people do.  In any case, setting is the more common word used with establishing a narrative, so we'll use it instead of environment.

And yes, the players do describe what they want to do.  Having obtained the setting in their minds, they act decisively according to how they feel they can best manipulate the setting, and the circumstances surrounding it.  I find the language a little goofy where point 2 includes the phrase [p.6, top right], "the DM listens to every play and decides how to resolve those actions."  I don't see how the DM is resolving anything.  The player searches the chest and the DM describes the setting inside the chest.  The player examines the esoteric symbol engraved on the wall and the DM describes the wall as the player sees it.  A third player keeps watch for monsters and the DM describes if anything appears.  What resolution?

[yes, I see what point 3 says below about narrating results; we'll get there]

The next paragraph tries to explain what's meant by "resolution":

"If an adventurer wants to walk across a room and open a door, the DM might just say that the door opens and describe what lies beyond. But the door might be locked, the floor might hide a deadly trap, or some other circumstance might make it challenging for an adventurer to complete a task."

I'm sorry, but this makes no sense.  It seems to have jumped the perspective to the player, as from the players' perspective the DM might say anything.  But it is clear we're talking about the DM's part, so ...

If the door IS locked, there's no "might" about what the DM will say.  The DM will say the door is open if, and only if, the door is open.  If the door isn't open, the DM will never, ever say the door is open.  The DM is supposed to know if it is or isn't.  We assume that when we put the DM in the position of describing the setting.  So what the fuck goes here?

On top of that, no one in this example is completing a task.  A task is a form of work that needs doing ~ as in, something that has to be done, usually for someone else, as tasks are often assigned.  No one here is doing anything like a task.  They are opening a door.  They are examining a chest.  They are looking down a hallway.  These are not tasks.  They are hardly work, unless we want to define the word according to physics.  Okay, their hearts are working.  But it would be stupid if I were to turn to you in a hallway as you looked at a wall motif and said, "Hey Bob, getting that task done?"

Look, I'm not trying to nit-pick ... but this is the English language.  And it is implying stuff that isn't there. Which makes it pretty damn hard to identify just what the hell it is trying to say.  Look at this sentence immediately following, finishing off the 2nd paragraph:

"In those cases [resolving the task], the DM decides what happens, often relying on the roll of a die to determine the results of an action."

Yes, that's true.  Except here ... are we really going to say that the DM doesn't know if the door is locked until the player tries to open it?  Or if there is a trap in the room until after the players walk across the floor?  Me, when I describe an environment, I'm clear about what's there before the players get there.  I would think we'd want to encourage DMs to know.  This seems to imply that the DM has no clue at all, not until the players actually show up, and then the DM thinks fast while the players are looking at chests and hallways and wall symbols, thinking, hey, "I wonder if there's a trap here?  I better throw a die."

So, does the DM resolve the players' actions ... or does the die resolve the players' actions.  Because the way this paragraph is written, it sounds like the die.

We can't be clearer than this?

Okay.  Let's pick up point 3.  But first, I'm going to rant about something else.

[remember earlier in this series I talked about the publishers' decision to call the players "adventurers" and not "characters"?  I said it was pretty dumb at the time, since we're already used to calling them players.  Well, if you look at page 3, it is fairly clear that the publishers couldn't make up their minds whether or not to embrace the "adventurers" rebrand. Point 1 says, "The DM tells the players;" and point 2 says, "The players describe;" and then point 3 uses the phrase: "The DM narrates the results of the adventurer's actions."  Now, apparently, "adventurers" also means "players."]

At point 3, the wheels really come off this cart. The so-called resolution that the DM has made about the players' actions now mysteriously inserts the phrase "decision point" without any explanation. I don't know what this is supposed to mean in this context. The paragraph that follows returns to the old pattern, discussed before, of dangling adventure ideas in front of the reader without details or purpose.
The paragraph after that ... well, I'll have to quote it:

"Often the action of an adventure takes place in the imagination of the players and DM, relying on the DM’s verbal descriptions to set the scene. Some DMs like to use music, art or recorded sound effects to help set the mood, and many players and DMs alike adopt different voices for the various adventurers, monsters, and other characters they play in the game. Sometimes, a DM might lay out a map and use tokens or miniature figures to represent each creature involved in a scene to help the players keep track of where everyone is."

What in the motherfuck is this?  Sorry, some of you in bloomers coughed a bit there, didn't mean to startle you.  But what in the moth--

Step one: the DM describes the setting.  Step two, the Players take actions ... and the DM resolves them.  Sort of.  Step three, stuff to do, voices, miniatures, creatures in a scene.  There you go, clear as can be.

What the fuck is a decision point?  Oh well, no time for that.  Time to talk about dice.  Well, that's fine for the book but I'm still stuck on the above.

Very well, I take a crack at explaining this myself.

Create a setting.  Describe the setting.  Explain to the players that the setting works just like the real world; you can walk up to things and examine them, you can walk up to intelligent beings and talk to them.  When you're bored with what you can see, pick a direction and start to travel.  Watch the world unfold in front of you.  I will describe each place as you come to it.  If there's something that interests you about that place, interact with it.  With those who can answer, ask questions.  If you want to intimidate people, threaten them.  Show them your weapons and beat your shield.  If you want people to like you, put your shield and weapon down and speak nicely.

You can interact with anything.  And pretty much however you want.  If you ask me, your DM, a question, I'll answer if you've taken the steps to deserve that answer.  Turn a stone over and I'll tell you what's underneath.  Ask a being a question and I'll give their answer.  Crawl into a hole and I'll describe what's inside.

This is a die. But don't worry
about that now.

If you try to do something where there's a doubt of success, we'll roll a die.  Say you try to throw a rock at a tree.  Well, you might either hit or miss.  We'll roll a die and see.  You might try to kill someone. They'll try to stop you ~ so we'll roll a die and see who goes first.  If you get a chance to use your weapon, we'll roll to see if you're successful with it.  If you're not, and the other guy is, you could die.  We'll roll a die for that too.

Of course, all this dice stuff is tricky.  So we'll leave that for our next post.  Toodle-oos.

Sidebar: Ethical Drift

Update: after much consideration, I am no longer considering this post to be part of the RPG 201 syllabus.  While I stand by all that's said here, I have come to consider it an opinion and not properly supported by earlier classes and conclusions.  Therefore I am leaving it on the blog but I am stepping back and reconsidering how the 22nd class should have been more properly based on earlier material.  I mean to go in a different direction from what's discussed below.

Alexis, Jan 10th 2019 

Quoting the last class, I ended by saying that the setting we create (and by extension, the game), must exist as something the players will want to play. That was perhaps too obscure a point; I should rather have said that in giving our setting meaning, we must enable the players to make meaning for themselves ~ just as we discussed in an earlier class. The players must be able to make sense of their situation, and of the relationships they have with NPCs. The players must be able, with experience and awareness, develop a consciousness of the setting that rivals their ready consciousness with the real world, the one they’ve occupied since becoming self-aware.

It is for that reason that we don’t want to become entangled with the mechanical structure of the campaign too early in our design process. The setting’s lay-out or appearance should not be our priority. Those things matter, of course; and they need to be addressed before the setting can be called ready. But first we must understand how our setting will function in terms of the purpose it serves – and that purpose is to provide an opportunity for the meaning players will ascribe to their characters, their goals and themselves.

We address this process according to those things that I listed at the end of our last class: the ethics, values and emotion the campaign possesses. It would be fair to expect, without examination, that the DM’s perception of these things will play a strong part. Where the game pays off the players for their actions, we would expect that if the players act according to the DM’s ethical code, they’ll be rewarded. If they value what the DM values, they’ll receive the DM’s endorsement. And if the players retain an instinctive mood that matches the DM’s, they’ll be made to feel welcome in the DM’s setting.

Yet it need not be so. The DM may not expect the players to be so aligned ~ but rather, create a setting that functions much more like the patterns of the actual world. For example, that allows both ethical and unethical behavior. That provides for the pursuit of values that reach far out of the DM’s interest. And the display of emotions and mood that challenges the DM’s equanimity. In such a setting, the players are not compelled to seek success through actively making meaning of the DM’s worldview … but rather, their own.

To have this, we are challenged as DM’s to step out of our personal meanings and into a potentially universal meaning. But while that seems well and good in theory, I would not be surprised to find that most of this class would be puzzled as to how to approach the problem.

We can start right immediately. Let’s talk about ethics ~ not the ethics of the participants, nor the ethics of proper game play … but the ethics expected of player characters in a setting that potentially treats their ethical behavior with relative indifference. Just as any of us right now might act without ethics, in small ways, and receive no consequences.

Ethics are commonly defined as the difference between right and wrong, good or ill, or as role-playing would have it, Law and Chaos. And while these have an esoteric function in our minds where meaning-making is concerned, I would propose a practical duality for ethics that will better describe a role-played character’s perception of their world: “Do no harm” versus the freedom to “inflict harm intentionally.”

This immediately invokes a common perception with role-playing games, that we touched upon earlier in our discussion of heroes. A hero, we perceive, sets out to defend justice, to distribute benefits fairly, to act with kindness and not malice, to do good, to vanquish evil and to sacrifice for the greater good. On the other hand, a “murder hobo,” as contrary players are often described, seek for themselves, care nothing for other values and beliefs, grab all they can, kill maliciously, benefit themselves and if they do good and kill something evil, it has less to do with goodness and all to do with removing the evil as an obstacle.

Suppose we graph these ideas.  Imagine a midpoint between two extremes, represented as a vertical line.  At the top of the line we have the ultimate forces for benevolence and justice: entities that wish only for the best of all things.  These forces are then in conflict with forces at the bottom of our imaginary line ~ forces of malicious intent, cruelty, sin, however we choose to label it.  This is easy enough.

Now let's expand that line out into a 2-dimensional graph, as shown on the right, by adding time.  The red line on the graph represents the player party's ethical drift, as time passes.  If the party acts with malice, they move upwards on the chart, against these labeled entities for responsibility and benevolence.  If the party acts to defend justice, they move downwards on the chart, against entities for self-interest and malevolence.

This seems counter-intuitive; we would normally suppose that moving into the green part of the graph would be "joining" those forces.  However, the game, and the party's movements, is driven by how the players conflict with the world's ideals.  Thus, as they move towards the lawful forces of the social system, they impugn upon those forces.  And vice versa.

So as they get started in a barfight, ignoring the bartender and creating a disturbance, they flee the patrol before it arrives.  The party loses a purse; they go after the pickpocket; get into a brawl with ruffians; continue to hunt into the darker areas of the city, learning from a gangmember that there are girl slaves at a brothel.  They rescue one girl and rush to find solace among law and order; to get there, they have to make a deal with a usurer, who hides them long enough to let them escape.  Then, safe, walking past a fruit cart, one of the party steals an apple.

These are mostly issues with locals ... the sort that might be in the bar with the party (10 meters), on a nearby street (100 meters) or somewhere in the town (1000 meters).  When they have the barfight, the patrol cares because it is nearby; but the guardhouse and vicar are quite a lot further away and aren't likely to be involved.  The captain of the guard or the judge that makes a circuit of local towns will probably never hear of the incident ... as long as the party flees the scene.

On the other hand, the owner of the brothel where the girl was saved might be across town ... and probably will hear about the theft, thus we draw the line down past the actual travel distance for the party.  The line represents the party's influence on the top and bottom of this graph.  We might suppose the news might reach the crime guildmaster overlooking all the brothels within 100 km ... but that is up to us.

Our goal here is to imagine for ourselves as setting creators how those distant forces are influenced by those forces close to the party.  How is the power structure of our world organized?  Is it static, where every being has its place except for the party, which wanders back and forth between different factions ... or is the state of the world's power forces in a state of flux.  We can easily see how the motion of these entities on both sides have the potential for moving on their own trajectories, towards the party or away from it.

Whichever we choose, we need to see not only how the world is structured, but how does that world function in real time, as those entities we define create their own ethical drift?

We will be discussing that with our next class, as we take up the subject of value, both that of the players and the non-players.

Name Recognition

Wandering out on this January 2nd to do my taxes, I stopped to grab a coke on the way home and found this in the news vendor's fridge.  Though it isn't "Alexis," it's as close as I expect to get ... and it has made me rethink at least one thing that I've rewritten lately.

It's not logical, but this silly bit of bling did make me feel warmer.  I don't know what it is about seeing your own name on things, but it's real.

So is that it?  Is that a reason why you want to see your name on a list of contributors?  Because in a weird way it makes a mark, or proves you exist?  The bottle on the left only proves that "Alex" is a common enough name to make it worthwhile changing the template on branding for a day or two ... but as an Alex (sort of), it feels like someone cared enough to add that name to their list.

Okay, let's say you want your name acknowledged.  Clearly, I can relate to that, in this context at least.  Is there a reacharound we can both embrace?  Is there a way to put your name ahead of mine on a post, an object or on something I'm designing?

I think there is.  The most popular post on this blog begins with the name, "Blaine H."  He didn't write the post, but he made the point that GM's guide was wanted.  His was the spark that started that post and ultimately my book How to Run.  Arguably, he started my adventures to selling at game cons and even the RPG 201 course, as I've continued to try and answer his proposal.

As a reader, how would you want your name to appear here?  In what sense?  Do you want to put yourself in front of these other readers, like some did on the Authentic podcast?  If there was a Tao of D&D coffee cup, would it make it more valuable if your name was on it?  Because I can definitely make that happen.

Let me know.  This sort of collaboration doesn't make me feel exploitative.  I don't feel bound by it and I don't feel I'm cheapening myself or my brand reaching out this way.  If it's a way of meeting my reader on an equal basis, person to person, I want to embrace that.

Those things matter to me.

Cheetah

Sorry I haven't anything else to show today.  But this is a fair take on a first monster for 2019.  Many others to come.

A slender bodied large cat with spotted coat, small rounded head and a long spotted tail. Lightly built, the cheetah can outrun almost any other creature over short distances. They are active throughout the day and have adapted many natural ranges throughout Africa, Arabia, Persia and the Indian subcontinent. They are most common upon the savannas and veldts of east and southern Africa.

Carnivores, cheetah prefer to prey upon antelopes and other smaller horned animals ranging from between 51 and 123 lbs. in weight. They have been known to stalk elves and other small humanoids. Cheetahs can take down much larger prey, up to 290 lbs., if necessary.

They can be quite gregarious and can even be trained; pet cheetahs are a favorite companion throughout South Asia, though training them to accept a master means diminishing their aggression. Pet cheetahs do not make good guard animals.

Cheetahs will rarely stand and fight, unless cornered. They prefer to escape. When stalking prey, they will crouch and move slowly upon their intended prey, until getting within 40 hexes (200 feet). This is well out of the range to be detected by most creatures (see stealth). The cheetah will then put on a burst of speed.  The cheetah reaches a speed of 70 mph with less than two action points (about 3.2 seconds); this will effectively cover the distance between when it has hidden itself and its target in less than a round (the cheetah moves at 102 feet per second at its fastest).  The target will be surprised on a 5 in 6; it is entitled to an initiative roll ~ but a successful initiative roll will allow the target only one action point of movement before the cheetah attacks.  For most creatures, this is not enough to run very far or fight back, except with open hand, fist or if the defender has the ability to make a weapon attack with 1 AP.

If the target runs, when the cheetah gains on its target it will attack with its dewclaw first; a hit, regardless of the amount of damage done, will trip the target and dump it to the ground. Because of the cheetah's speed and agility, there is no saving throw. The cheetah's second attack will be its bite; if this hits a dumped target, the damage done by the speed of the strike will be double damage.

See Bestiary