Wiki, January 10, 2011

I continued to work on maps this week, mostly on calculating the areas of additional provinces, since there are a lot of grayed out places on the 'Cities' list.  I finally succeeded in reformatting all the city files for the Wiki, but since the area data is missing there isn't much point in publishing it.  The updated tables for world population and area, and for regions, can be found at the city index page.  At present, the world has a population of 116,092,588, and a measured area of 12,313.7 hexes.  In square miles, this would be roughly 3.8 million, or the size of Canada.

I have published a few city lists which are complete.  Namely, Cumana, Milan and Moskva.  Cumana is a half-orc client kingdom in what would be eastern Ukraine in our world - one only has to imagine that the Cumans were orcs, and were never fully defeated by the Kievans ... the two races then interbred.  The Dworkin colony is in the Donets Hills ... these are slightly different from ordinary half-orcs in that they are shorter and heavier.  Players playing dworkin characters still subtract 2 charisma, but instead of adding a point of strength and a point of constitution, they add 2 points of constitution.  At any rate, Cumana can be found mostly on this map (labeled twice, which is an error - ah well, fix it later).

Moskva is, of course, Russia.  Both it and the maps for Milan have been posted on the Wiki.  Enjoy finding them ... heh heh heh.

But very few of you are here to look at cities.  For monsters, I updated the Presence and Encounters tables to match the Biology table I posted about a month ago.  This means that all 0 to 1 intelligence creatures have been created, as well as canines and felines with 2 intelligence.  You can find the latter at the bottom of each table, highlighted in yellow.

Things get more complicated, as creatures with 2 intelligence may be encountered in four different ways.  So far I have a mere 16 different types of encounters for which a monster must have at least a 2 intelligence.  But this is only a beginning; there are other 2 intelligence monsters - of course - which I have not yet added (I will do more in the next few weeks).

Moreover, for each 3 intelligence monster I must invent 7 encounter types; for each 4 intelligence monster, 10 encounter types; for each 5 intelligence monster, 13 encounter types; and so on.  Thankfully, I'm only working on a 12 point scale for intelligence, AND encounter types can apply to more than one monster (I don't have to make unique encounter types for every monster).  Most monsters fit into categories where they all tend to act similarly ... most canines and most felines, for instance.

Apart from cities and monsters I've continued to add maps east of the Caspian Sea: Kara Kum, Turkestan and Hindu Kush.  Pay special close attention to the bottom of the Turkestan map.  'Kabolistan' on that map corresponds roughly to the eastern part of Afghanistan; the city of Kabol appears on the very bottom row of hexes, towards the right side.  Note how the centre of that region forms a lower plateau amidst very high mountains on all sides.  The reader can see how high those mountains become on the Hindu Kush map; the unmade portion is extreme western Tibet.

Finally, I've updated the Germania map again.  It is slow going, as each region I work on with this map is complicated and difficult to sketch out.  Compare the changes to where it was last week:

This is about as cluttered as the map gets.  After this point I start cleaning up the notes and smoothing out the coloring, and it becomes easier on the eye.  I messed about for quite awhile before getting a color scheme that was comfortable to look at, but still gave the necessary information.  Aesthetics are important.

This is one of the reasons I like working on a graphic design program, and having complete control of a map I make myself.  Last week people asked me why I bothered, why I didn't just use an existing map.  The answer: flexibility.  With my own map, where everything is a constructed element on the program, I can change any element I wish, whenever I wish, without having to re-pixillate someone else's imagery.  Believe me, this is greatly needed.

As well, if you haven't considered learning how to use Quark or Publisher, I would point out how I can make many little notes on how I'm going to color this hex or take that river, right on the map, so that I'm not dependent on my memory for each feature.  I can work on all the features at once, graphing them in general, before going in and microdesigning each one.  For myself, I keep it relatively simple - this looks a mess, but it really isn't too bad.  Admittedly, these little tiny states of Europe have raised some signficant bumps on my forehead, and a slightly grooved place on my desk; but a little sanding should sort both out.

The Official Line

Funny.  I write a post about incorporating some sort of cards into the game and WOTC announces that they've done it.  In a really ... stupid ... way.

And gamers are upset.  Because if a corporation brings forth a different way of playing, it brings pressure against every DM in the universe to play the new way.  Ooooh, so much pressure.  Plus there's that whole blasphemy/heretic thing: oh no, it will further subdivide the hobby!

But really, mostly what I've seen is a whole lot of apathy.  This isn't quite the vitriolic outrage that accompanied the release of 4e, is it?  But then, perhaps its not as big as 4e.  Perhaps this is just a silly launch of a silly product that will almost certainly be taken up by mostly silly people.  And the hardened gamers know it.

Sometimes I wonder how much power corporations have over us ... or how much we allow them to have.  If the NFL decided to change the shape of footballs, making the official football six millimeters shorter, wouldn't every football in America change?  Are there still people, anywhere, making their own footballs?  There used to be.  But with the invention of the "official" product of whatever sports franchise you care to mention, there comes an enslavement of a people to the crap that franchise chooses to put out.  Even a kind of prejudice against those who aren't enslaved, as masses of schoolchildren jeer and scoff at the child who still has the ridiculous, enlongated football of last year rather than the new, zippy football of the right now.

But of course, what a cash grab for the NFL, when the coffers get a little roomy.  Which is all the WOTC has done here.  Everyone knows it.  Even those who will buy the cards.

It was mentioned a couple of days ago on this blog that cards would be a terrific fetishistic article to add to a player's character.  That there is the appeal.  For thousands of players who don't know what they're doing, who aren't sure what the game is about, who are looking for a greater tactile connection, the cards are great.  They're simple to understand.  They shift the game from deciphering incomprehensible books to stacking comprehensible status symbols.  Children will embrace them, as they have always embraced such things.  A real, official football for Christmas?  Thanks Grandma!

And as the children grow into adults with their loved D&D cards in their pockets, they will glare with mockish disapproval at the old farts that didn't buy in, decrying them as stodgy dullards who still play the game "like it was the dark ages."

This worries the community.  At least, those parts of the community who used to be the golden boys when 3e was on the rise and THEY were the smarty-pants players better than their OD&D peers.  But of course the OD&D faction has fought back, stamping out their approval of old virtues and values, claiming dogma left and right as 'proof' that the old way was always the right way.  Granted, old has always had its particular brand of cachet, the tradition that tradition is somehow special because it is old.  If it wasn't special, would it still be around?

Such is the way with factions.  Gotta belong to this group or that group to prop up the old ego, you know; to feel reassurred that we're not alone, that there are others just like us who approve of the same things and - without question - hate the same things.

Really early this morning, Mike Vavosa on the previous post asked why role-playing games would need a universal IMECH ... and the answer to that is, why bother trying to create one?  I'm certainly not.  I'm not very concerned with making anything universal.  WOTC really doesn't give a rat's ass if cards become a universal part of the game or not.  They're counting how many cards they can sell.  What's more, it's no nevermind to them if the cards even get used for D&D.  If someone figures out a way to making a drinking game out of the cards, played in public taverns, which results in more sales, WOTC will be really fine with that.

The gamer out there should realize that people and factions and corporations don't have any power to make things 'universal.'  They have only the power to browbeat, cajole, deceive or otherwise tempt people into pursuing actions beneficial for the source.  There's no one in existence that can make you play in any way other than the way you wish to play.  No power exists as a standard that all must follow.

But some will tell you different.

Hey, Hey, Hey ... Want To Test That Bullshit First?

Reading through Raph Koster's blog, which I was directed to do by a good friend, I realized that something important must be said about the prospective round table going on with my last post, and with most posts to be found in the D&D blogosphere.

It's all bullshit.

I want to declare clearly that anything and everything I've said about IMech is, at this point, utterly useless for anything except to waste people's time reading it.  I have not proposed an actual system.  I have not produced any game design whatsoever.  I've watched others throw out possible designs, but I haven't been stupid enough to do so myself ... not for an IMech, anyway.

Why?  Because I have tested jack shit.

The material you will find on the Same Universe Wiki, at least that posted by me, does not represent some mental calisthenics that have occurred to me after a late night session with booze and D&D books.  It is material that I have play-tested.  I know it works, not because it ought to work, but because it actually does work.  And the nice thing is, when other people scarf it up for their world, they are gratified.

But at least 99% of anything you find written about by the community, from monsters to magic items to proposed gaming systems and resolutions, has never been tried by anyone, ever.

"Hey guys, I just thought up this GREAT magic item!  Here's how it works!"

The lack of testing is more than evidenced by people rushing forward to write out a few hundred words about how an IMech could work, less than 24 hours after my writing the post.  People do not even imagine that the idea NEEDS to be tested.  Just them thinking of it is more than enough justification to barf it out all over the place.

Guess what, kiddies.  It's shit until you prove it's roadworthy.  If I ever come up with a system for IMech, I swear to holy lizard babies that I won't post it here until my party loves it.  I realize now that my mistake was ever mentioning that I had the idea as a half-formed thing ... because people don't want to discuss what needs to be managed, they want to leap right to the fully-formed solution in an hour or less!

This must be how Call of Duty got made.

UPDATE:

You can find me apologizing about some of this post here.

IMech 3: The Rise of the NPC

Patience, O Gentle Reader, for some matters cannot be measured in a few hundred words, nor even a dozen paragraphs, but must by every grain be sifted completely.  So snatch not this post lightly, but gravely, that it might be understood in its intent.

I have seen posts occurring spottily about the net on the subject of an interactive/intelligence mechanic (not always as an 'IMech') in the last month.  I have continued to give it thought myself, not wishing to add to the discussion until I legitimately had something comprehensive in scope to offer.  But reading Zak's post here, and Oddbit's post here, and finally Telecanter's post here, combined with far too much play at SimCity 4 since Christmas Day (received a copy of the game that was formatted for Vista), my festering mind generated forth an epiphany, which I should like to share.

From comments written after Zak's blog, the thinking continues to follow the principle of 1. have skill; 2. roll against skill; 3. do or do not achieve goal.  Zak (and his vigorous readers) has attempted to replace the 'roll' element with player prowess at what might be termed 'party games.'  Such games might invigorate a session, but it was discussed earlier on this blog (here and here) that the problem remains that player characters with high intelligence or charisma may not be backed by players so blessed.  In other words, if I cannot think of how to answer a question accurately in ten words or less, this does not mean my 18 intelligence mage cannot do so.

Nevertheless, reading through the various skill-testing ordeals, I was struck by the actual problem in the long accepted 3-point process above.  Let us take a neutral example, a common circumstance, typically managed in the D&D setting.

I wish to bribe a guard, in order to gain entrance into ... well, it doesn't matter.  I propose a sum of money, one of my skills is presented, a die is rolled, and the guard accepts the bribe, does not accept the bribe, or reacts in such a manner as to cause great problems for me.  In the process of roleplaying the event, I draw upon my intelligence, my wisdom, my charisma, my bribery skills ... whatever the DM allows me to invoke.  If I am successful, the guard's demeanor is influenced by me and I achieve what I want.

But let us reverse this situation and apply it to the guard's point of view.  The guard has charisma, intelligence and wisdom also, and presumably 'guarding' skill.  At what point does the guard gain the opportunity to roll dice to successfully force my player character to go away?

Do you see?  It is one-sided.  In discussing the IMech problem, I earlier brought up the point that combat created a dynamic that simply did not exist in those interaction circumstances of the game.  This is why.  Combat is not resolved by rolling the 'to hit' die and either successfully killing the opponent or being killed.  If you boil combat down to one roll, you will very quickly find combat a VERY boring part of the game.

No, no, no, the NPC gets to swing also.  They get to roll dice, damage the opponent or kill the opponent - the ultimate restriction on the character's freedom of action.  It is perfectly reasonable that any lesser freedom of action placed upon the character is potentially fair ... even if that means the player is not able to do something the player wishes to do.

Why should it not be that as my player approaches the guard to offer the bribe, the guard's stance, the guard's demeanor, even the steely gaze which the guard holds as he watches me approach, causes my player to lose heart and not even try?  Is this not also part of the IMech dynamic?  It is always assumed that the player will without question get as far as offering the money - no matter what the player's wisdom or constitution might be.  What if the player simply doesn't have the stomach for it?

Understanding, if I have made my point clear, that both sides should have the privilege of rolling against their statistics or skills in order to carry out their conflicting roles, it becomes very clear that rolling is inadequate to the mechanic.  If I have a 14 charisma, and the guard has a 14 charisma, and I have the wisdom to recognize that I'm being hustled, and the guard has the wisdom to recognize that he's being hustled, how does a die roll based on the success/fail dynamic truly represent what is going on?  Truth?  It doesn't.  However you design the rolls, the end result is a crap shoot.  And craps, without the possibility of winning large amounts of money, is a dull, dull game.

Combat is not a crap shoot.  The die roll in combat is influenced by positional tactics, armor class, the well of hit points one brings to the battle, magic, instrumentation and so on ... so it is not merely hit or miss.  Most of all, a hit does not mean the battle is won, and a miss does not mean the battle is lost.  It takes many hits and many misses to resolve the battle, and that makes the process interesting.

But interactive mechanics are not combat, and shouldn't be combat.  A parallel system of 'mental combat' would be a poor substitute for roleplaying.  And what we would want is an IMech that supports roleplaying, just as a near-death experience in combat does.  Something that allows for an 'attack' and a 'defense.'  Something that allows the element of chance, but reduced.  For that, we don't want craps.  Throw out the dice.  The game here is War.

From Wikipedia:

"The deck is divided evenly among the two players, giving each a face-down stack.  In unison, each player reveals the top card on his stack (a "battle"), and the player with the higher card takes both the cards played and moves them to the bottom of his stack."

Now the reader, myself, and everyone associated with D&D know already that this familiar children's game was ramped to the maximum by Magic: The Gathering.  If you're like me, you hate that game, more for the obsessive-compulsive behavior of the players than for the actual concept.  This gets worse when one incorporates the accepted practice of deck-stacking into the game's competition, so that only the most obsessive can actually play the game publically.  Nevertheless, the principle of the game is worth considering here, in that it changes elements of the game War in a manner that could be applied as an interactive mechanic for D&D.

First, "the deck" is not randomized.  It represents a very specific set of skills or talents which could be tailored quite specifically to any player character, regardless of their stat distribution.  Secondly, the "reveal" isn't random.  The player holds the cards in his or her hand, and has the power of choice.  And finally, the "battle" isn't won on the basis of the higher card, but rather upon a rock-paper-scissors motif.

(as an aside, rock-paper-scissors, like war, also yields the elements of chance without the need for a die roll ... but since the options are so limited, and cannot be customized for every kind of player, it is of little value as an IMech.  It is an IMech, however - in case that was missed)

If the game of War is introduced into D&D, it changes the dynamic of bribing the guard from success/failure to a matter of play strategy.  I have charisma, and the guard has charisma, but success is now dependent on when I play, rather than how much.  Both the guard and I have winning cards; but his heart trumps my ace, unless I have a club that permits me another play, though now both my ace and his heart are gone.

I can see how the play could be accomplished.  To get past the guard, a certain number of the guard's limited supply of cards must be 'deactivated.'  The guard, in turn, as presented by the DM, can play to outwit the player.  Both sides can roleplay the situation in order to encourage the other side to misunderstand what cards will be played.  An edge might be allowed that will enable the player to 'see' some or all of the guard's cards.  The DM will have to 'play dumb,' since the player's cards will always be known.

But there should be more at stake than merely getting past the guard.  Obviously, once the guard gave in, the guard could be expected to do so in the future.  So the real result should be the establishment of the 'relationship' between the guard and the player characters.  Does he become 'Friendly'?  'Friendly with reservations'?  'Resistant but understanding'?  Perhaps he isn't willing to let the players past, but he will be forthcoming with information.  The final analysis must be more than just success/fail.  A wide variety of results must be possible, and those results would be determined by which card was played against which card.

If you are looking for me, right now, to provide a phenomenal list of cards which could now be used to make all this possible, you're going to be disappointed.  All I know at this point is that this is the right road to take.  The exact nature of the cards remains a mystery to me as well as to you.  But surely there would be cards based upon the class skills of the players; cards that would be gained with an increase in levels; cards gained in lieu of experience for traumatic or victorious moments had in a player's life; cards for reputation; cards for status and notoriety; cards for criminal behavior; cards for weakness and so on.  A player's cards would be more or less static - every encounter would be approached with the same cards, which the player would have to learn to use ... though obviously some cards, such as "bribe with more money" would require the resources to back the card up.  And of course, the devastation of a player's reputation would mean the removal of the player's reputation cards.

Complicated?  Oh yes.  But this is D&D, remember?  We shouldn't pale at complication.

One last point, which is implied in the above and in the title of this post, but which may yet not have sunk home.  An NPC should be able, through the application of cards, to force a player character to be the NPC's friend or ally.  Players are forced to die.  They are forced by the roll to be surprised.  They are forced by magic to be possessed.  You cannot have a character who chooses to limit the consequences of their actions to things the player isn't squeamish about.  There must be the possibility of the player seeing the NPC coming down the street, the NPC to which the character has never been able to say no, and the player growing pale wondering what the NPC is going to ask for this time.  If only the player could gain a level, and thus the necessary card (assuming the necessary card doesn't need to be gained some other way) to get that NPC bastard off his or her back.

If only.

The Ranger Rolled

It's not the style of this blog, but for posterity I have to include a war story today; feel free to shut off until the next post.

The party I'm running right now are made up of second-string henchmen, who after the goblin war have struck out westward in search of Horseshoes of the Zephyr; the 6th level paladin wants them.  Stumbling into a countrified thief's lair (small house, tunnels), the party found themselves fighting eight ochre jellies in a library ... and with the books being valuable as treasure, they resisted using fire.  Prior, they'd been trapped and backstabbed several different ways, and the party was suffering before the battle began.

During the battle, the 7th level thief, Ivan, was struck repeatedly by a jelly that refused to die (Ivan was fighting with two daggers, and since I argue that all jellies are only half affected by edged/stabbing weapons, he wasn't doing too well).  The last blow was a critical, and Ivan was struck for 16 points; this dropped Ivan to negative 9.  A death in many worlds, but in mine, still technically alive.

However, any hit of 11 damage or more is a wound, which causes 1 hp damage per round if the matter is not attended to.  Since a jelly creates a hard pseudopod which whacks its enemies, I judged that Ivan's head hit the flagstone floor, and was thus gashed open.

The blow (and the fall) succeeded in knocking Ivan unconscious (constitution at 10% of it's normal total, or 1.6, meaning he needed to roll a 1 on a d20 to remain conscious).  He failed.  And so although Ivan survived the damage from the blow, he was 1 round away from being very dead.

By this time, the cleric had interposed herself between the jelly and Ivan, but there was no one to address Ivan's wound ... except for the 1st level ranger, who was himself at -5 hit points, and sitting dazed against the wall (had been there for several rounds, with no where to escape).  While the ranger was conscious, it had to be argued that the ranger's cognizance was highly in question.  Was the ranger in enough control of his faculties to save Ivan in time?

A wisdom check was needed.  If you've gone to the link I posted about 'good negativity', you'll know that the ranger was at that moment at 50% of his wisdom, which is normally 13.  That's 6.5.  The ranger needed to roll a 6 or less on a d20 or Ivan would die.

We are talking pressure.  We are talking a table full of people hanging very heavily on the outcome of one roll ... and an unlikely roll.  30% chance of life.  70% chance of death.  A 7th level thief in the balance, one which had been running in my world for four years.  His life, dependent not on my roll, but the roll of another player.

The ranger rolled a 5.

Much happy whooping ensued.  Arms thrown high in the air, shouting, a pleased and relieved look on the ranger's face, a terrifically happy party.  Remarkable what a die roll can do.

"Four times!" shouted the thief.  He recalled that four times his character had dropped down to -9 hit points and live to tell the tale.  He could remember the three previous times with clarity, while I, honestly, could not remember at all.  Those moments were important to the thief - not to me.  Whereas they had mattered at the time, because I wasn't emotionally charged on the survival or death of the character, I hadn't retained it.

The thief had.  His memory was exact.  He had fought and survived against the most ruthless odds and had survived, and for him this war story was one more proof of this character's destiny.

I wonder if the gentle reader can understand, except from perhaps their own, similar memories, how events such as this produce a steadfast love for a character.  Particularly when it occurs over time, where a meaningful percentage of one's life is spent honing a personality.  The paper manufacture of characters aside, the players' emotions rise and fall with the success or failure of these imaginary beings.  We invest in them as strongly as we would any hoped-for, and never realized fantasy ... for the fantasy of the game is not found in the rules, or the type of game played, or its intrinsic nature, but in the absolute love given to the creations of our imagination.

I feel sad for those people who don't get to experience it.  Wrapped up in proving that the game is fun, or that keen things happen, or that enjoying time with others is wonderful, these people miss the deeper fantasy that possesses D&D (or any other RPG).  Ivan didn't turn to the room and shout, "that was so cool!"  He shouted, "I LIVED!"  Not an oblique observation of the event, not detached ... but an immediate, personal involvement.  Not, "Ivan lived," but "I".  I lived.  Life.  The pleasure of knowing one is alive.

Fun can be had anywhere.  Many things are keen.  I can always get together with other people for company.  But give me a chance to cheat death ... ah, that's unique.

Wiki, January 3, 2011

Despite hopes that I would get back to working on monsters over my holidays, it turns out that obligations outweighed my time, and what I could find left me with too thick a head to work on my biology table.  Making maps was much less cerebral, so that is what I continued to do this last week.

Principally, I tackled the undesirable task of working out Holland's coastline.  The problem is that modern maps are quite different from the reality of 1650, the date of my world, since Holland has continued to expand its territories through the building of polders for a great many centuries.  However, I was lucky enough to find this map, produced by Jan Janssonius in 1658:

It took some considerable effort to match up this map to the accuracy of modern satellite coastlines, but I'm happy with the results.  For posterity's sake (so I can come back myself and look at it years from now), here is the map of the Low Countries as of one week ago, and as of today:

As the reader can see, I've begun plotting the cities, which is the next stage (the tool I use for plotting is on the map).  Also, note that I've had to alter the border for Bentheim, having plotted the location of Enschede.  One must be flexible with new information.  The whole map of Germany can be found on the Wiki.

James, of A Dungeon Master's Tale, has contributed an outline for the Gnome Class, for those gentle readers who play D&D versions prior to AD&D.  I strongly recommend having a good look.

Other new things on the Wiki include lists for the cities of the Swiss Confederacy and for Tuscany.  I have added maps for Anatolia, Asia Minor and Transcaucasia.  The strange warping of the Anatolia map is due to it being located on the 30th Meridian, and thus subject to the 60 degree twist resulting from laying out a round Earth on a flat, hexagonal map; it is something I've talked about before.

I continue to encourage those who have material to post to contact me - my email is alexiss1@telus.net.  For those who have contacted me, I hope to see your material on the wiki soon.

Disrespect

Zak over at Playing D&D with Porn Stars has written two fine posts about the elements of narrative in D&D, which everyone must be aware of already since he's a popular fellow.

I wanted to make some points on the second post, the one with the extensive musician metaphor, about how both musicians and actors are really dispensible and that the true masters of the creative industries of film and music are not the talent at all, but are in fact the producers, those people with money ... but after reading through the comments, I gave up any notion of commenting myself.  By the time I would have added my bit, the conversation had spiraled into the usual, meaningless internet pattern ... spouting agendas, not dialogue.

I have nothing against anyone on the internet having an agenda.  I think if you have a blog you have to have one.  Agendas are wonderful things, they inspire argument and debate, they provide food for thought and inspiration, they offer the possibility of change.  Agendas, when intended to be harmful to people or thought, can be bad things, but then again any agenda can be brought down by an intelligent presentation of the facts ... eventually.

And that is what I crave for this blog.  People who can argue for or against my position from a position of intelligence and knowledge.  If I post an argument, I expect the comments added below that argument to be relevant to that argument.

Let me be clear.  When I say "I expect," I mean that I have no intention of tolerating any alternative.  And although I don't believe that I'll be understood by most of the community when I say this, I encourage others to take the same stand.

It may seem that I'm not talking about D&D specifically with this post, but I assure you that I am.  With respect to the gentle reader, D&D and the culture surrounding it possess a juvenile reputation which I must say frankly is deserved.  When a rational metaphor about macaroni and cheese is answered with the response, "Man, fuck macaroni," we have to know that infants are clearly in charge of the daycare.

I don't expect bloggers to raise the intellectual capacity of their readers: there are obviously some prize morons out there, and vast numbers of them seem to like D&D, or reading about it, so the task of re-educating the masses is beyond our means.  But I would like to encourage bloggers like Zak, who take the time to write an intelligent post for the purpose of persuading readers, to delete childish comments from their blogs.  Why?  For the good of the community.

The default for most bloggers is to argue that every comment has merit, that every commenter has something to say, and that every kind of censorship is a loss for the community.  This, because it is believed that more is better, that the more people speaking and voicing their opinions the better the dialogue, and that it is better to coddle and pamper the infantile than to abandon them in a dumpster.  Only with patience and nurturing can we hope to change people's minds about things they don't really understand ... and it is our responsibility as the knowing, able players of the game to present the game kindly, thoughtfully, and without prejudices.

It sounds very noble.  As such, the very idea of deleting anyone's comment from a blog seems like a very ignoble proposition, the sort of thing only an asshole would do; certainly, a bigger asshole than someone making purposeless comments about macaroni.  We aspire to democracy, after all, and anything that hints the least little bit against democracy is immediately vilified to the extreme.

Except ... it isn't.

I would presume that we all have jobs, or that we'd wish to have them.  Many of us work in the sort of professions that bring us satisfaction from the work we do, because we are creating something important, or providing a service that others depend upon ... and doing a good job is important to our self image.

In the setting of our jobs, we take it for granted that there will be a curtailing of inappropriate speech.  One does not barf out random comments at the boss or prior to the performance simply because the comment has come to mind.  We are aware that such behavior has consequences.  Our co-workers and employers will believe that our clever little infantasies are irresponsible and undesirable.  They will, in fact, be insulted by our lack of respect.  And in the face of continued lack of respect, they will cease inviting us back to our jobs.

This fiscal restraint on your freedom to act like an asshole in the workplace is never seen as the destruction of democracy, because it is recognized that for workers to work comfortably together it is necessary that respect trumps personal will.  The freedom of your fist ends where my nose begins.

I am sometimes taken to task on this blog for railing violently at some individual's answer to something I've said.  My reasons for doing so are entirely premeditated: I wish to dissuade, through practice, the posting of stupid, insipid or otherwise useless comments on this blog.  I wish to drive away people who lack the strength of their convictions, who might otherwise be encouraged to continue posting naive comments here were I to be polite or considerate.  My practice in this regard is, without question, very rude and disrespectful.  I very much hope that it will be received as such.

This practice has served me well for many years, and fits into the example I give above about the workplace thusly: if you do not have the sand to comment intelligently on this blog, because you lack the comprehension or knowledge inherently, you will not be invited to join.  You have failed the interview, if that makes it clearer.  But unlike a potential employer who will lead you gently and kindly out of the office, knowing perfectly well that your presence will never be wanted, ever, I don't have to worry - as interviewers worry - that you'll break down crying when you find out you've failed to impress me.  I have the luxury of informing you, immediately, that you are not worth having around.  Perhaps, if the truth is made clear to you, you might strive to become something better than the cretinous bit of mold that you are.

Now, I don't expect other blog owners, such as Zak, to follow my lead.  But it is obviously possible to have this position and still enjoy a sort of popularity.  Those who come to this blog come knowing that the discourse here will encourage ideas, and not bury them in a miasma of irrelevant nonsense.  The gentle readers here may hate me, they may hate what I say, but they can at least hear it without needing to put up with a lot of banal noise.

If you cannot stand up to the crap posted on your blog, I encourage you as the blog owner to recognize that comments posted which dismiss you, or your ideas, out of hand are disrespectful.  Delete them.  Comments which miss the point entirely, or which demonstrate that the commenter has not bothered to find his or her answers in your post, are disrespectful.  Questions that come out of the blue, which seem blatantly stupid, and which could have been sent to your clearly posted email, are disrespectful.  Hijacking your blog to make a personal point about their world or their way of doing things, points that should be made on their blogs and not yours, is disrespectful.

Stop letting the children disrespect you.  Insist that the discourse in the comments be equal to the effort you've made to post something of value.  You deserve it.  Your blog deserves it.  The good of the game and the community at large deserves it.

Let's stop inviting the infants to the adult table.  Let's give the infants a reason to improve themselves, to recognize that if they can't be of value, they won't be invited to sit.  Let's create a community worth having.

Wiki, December 27, 2010

More than half the reason I don't post more information to the Same Universe Wiki is because most of the information I have is in a non-formatted, not easily understood table, or consists of scattered information that needs gathering together.  It should be apparent to anyone who has seen a good deal of the Wiki that my world is in a constant state of creation, or flux.  So I post material as I format it, and I format as I gather that material together.

Such as it is with the Father's Table which I've posted.  The original is somewhere on my blog, though I can't find it without combing through it post by post it seems.  This table is marginally updated, with some new professions and some of the added abilities (now called 'legacies') cleaned up after running with them.  My players love this table, since it gives them a bonus ability, plus a sense of origin; it is seen as a kind of lottery which you win or don't win at.  Every profession is technically a 'winner,' but some are obviously much better than others.  Life isn't fair.

Some of the bonuses fit into house rules for my world, which I haven't gotten around to posting on the Wiki because I haven't worked out yet how to standardize the rule.  The worst of these is the "+1 weather grade" benefit, which refers to an individual's ability to live comfortably in weather conditions different from that of their birth ... someone from a desert climate finding themselves in sub-arctic surroundings would be much more uncomfortable than someone who originated in a temperate climate.  The table for this has been on hold for more than a year (puzzling it through in my head), but my players tolerate these things.  I hope to have something together for it soon.

I have added the standard maps: the West Mediterranean, which isn't much of anything yet; Italy, which the reader should compare with this image here, prior to my completing the Italy map (northern Italy is included on the Germany map); and Greece.  Believe you me, the islands on that last map were no picnic.  I trust the maps continue to impress my readers.  I have received lots of feedback for them.

This being Christmas, I haven't much more.  I've added two tables to my Cities page ... not the standard fare, I assure you.  If you will scroll down the page you will find a list of independent territories, all including the population of that territory and - in some cases - the area in hexes.  It should be obvious from the cities links I've been putting up for weeks (Poland, Sweden, etc.) that the population numbers are not generated out of my ass, but result from reading through material on individual cities, assigning a population to those cities based on an algorithm computed to their 1952 population, and that information used to determine the total population of the area.  Hex areas are computed according to population density and land use.  The numbers for area are, I'm afraid, inconclusive ... since in the case of many of these nations I have total population statistics but not total area.  Still calculating the latter out, province by province.

You will find a break-down of the World Population & Area table below (still on the cities table) as two jpegs, Provinces A-L and Provinces M-Z.  This shows which regions have had the area computed and which have not.  The Ottoman Empire, for instance, is much bigger than 397.4 hexes ... but if you scan down the page, you'll find that only parts of the European Empire are accounted for.

I hope this will feed the fascination of those gentle readers who adore statistics.

For the rest of you, I continue to encourage you to get involved in publishing your own material.  We are regularly getting more than 1,000 page views a week, so I can assure you that posting will drive eyes to your own website and it will get you attention.  Contact me at alexiss1@telus.net if you have anything you'd like to see on the Wiki.

Micromanagement

A friend of mine made a unique connection about my post yesterday, which was about how I did not prepare for a session and how I preferred to work on big picture stuff rather than the finicky details of the campaign.  This friend - who may identify himself in the comments if he wishes - brought up the point that DMs who spend a lot of time preparing for their campaigns are like micromanagers ... a point I realized at once was brilliant.

Consider this:

"If you are a micromanager, the chances are that sooner or later you will realize that the employees are spending an increasing amount of time thinking how to deal with their supervisor rather than actually working. If you wait long enough, most of the good self respecting people would have left and you would be left with a team of mediocre employees who just know one thing, follow orders, no questions asked."

Now, I am as guilty as anyone in saying that I have players, they like me, so my world cannot be that bad.  But that's really bullshit.  It could easily be that I browbeat my players into playing, that I expect them to toe a line which - if not toed - will be stabbed through their hearts.  Perhaps my players are fretful, accepting worms who are so short on social life they have to play in my world since its their only solace from the cold, oppressed dungeon apartments they can afford to rent.

Without giving any answer whether or not that's true, I'd like to turn it around against people out there making the same claims I have made.  Claims such as their players being roleplay geeks, or pure as the driven snow, or the same six buddies they've been playing with since the 1970s.  What do such claims mean, exactly?  Are these necessarily laudable plaudits about the strength and quality of the campaign described, or are they distinct signs that something is seriously, deeply wrong?

Do you mean to say that in 30 years of play, not one member at the table has dropped out, or been added?  Do you mean to say that no person offering to play in your campaign has ever expressed a desire for their 'evil' player characters to rape someone?  Do you seriously mean to claim that no weak roleplayers have ever cast dice at your table?  Or is it that your world is so inflexible, and your personal style as DM so stifling, that anyone who has dared to enter the sanctity of your domain with "weird" ideas has quickly slipped right out the door again, grateful that it was only one night of their lives they'll never get back?

Let us address the micromanager quote at the start.  A micromanager, for those who might not be overly familiar with the term (there are people younger than 18 that read this blog), is an individual who feels they must personally control or oversee every detail of what is being done by the employees under their authority.  Most 18-year-olds are familiar with this, as most jobs you get at 18 are for people with zero or no management skills, who think 'managing' is the same as 'nit-picking.'

And do not many DMs behave likewise?  Micromanaging every die roll, or the quality of the dice (yes, sorry, though I did think it was a good post Cyclopeatron), or what moral standing the player is expected to have in the DM's world, or dozens of other things that one might expect to find tolerable in the work place only because there's a wage.  We've all read examples.  The result is exactly as the description of micromanager reads: what is the DM thinking?  What is the solution the DM wants solved?  How will the DM motivate the players?  Carrots, sticks, extortion, punishments, behavioral corrections, karmic responses by the world to slap the players if they step out of line?

(Yes, true, I did mention karma a few posts ago.  But I haven't implemented it, have I?  Part of that has a great deal to do with the thought processes driving this post)

If the players are all focused one hundred percent on the DM, then I think something's wrong.  I have written right here on this blog - more than once - that it is MY world and that the world runs according to MY rules.  But the reader should know the game is not in the rules.  All I do is establish the playing field, draw out the lines and describe the methods of play - just as an umpire or a referee.  After that, I am well out of it.  There are arguments in my world.  They go on between the players.  If there's a question about what to do next, I'm not the one that's holding up the show.  I'm in the kitchen making myself coffee, waiting for them to sort out what they want to do.  Running the game is ejudicating, not directing.  But I've said that before.

Most micromanagers, it must be said, are oblivious to their own management practices.  They look around at their offices and think everything is going great!  People are obedient, the work is getting down, everyone has their heads down and focused on their work, no one looks the least bit undependable ... then the higher ups drop a survey on the employees and the results look - well, the gentle reader can guess.

I want to put myself under a microscope, with the hope that others would do the same.  And as you read this, ask yourself what your players might say to a completely disinterested investigator, who had them answer a survey about your world that you would never see.  How confident does that make you feel?  Are you certain your confidence is a good thing?

1. How long has this present campaign been in existence?

Simple enough.  Four years.  Five?  Could be six.  Seems like forever.

2.  How many players do you have, and how many right now were present at the beginning of the campaign?

I have eight players.  Four were present at the beginning.  They were the same four I started with.

3.  How many of your players are family members?

Three of the original four.  My wife plays, my daughter and her common-law husband.

4.  How many of your present players began playing after the halfway point in the existence of your campaign?  How many in the last year (if that applies)?

Four.  I had two girls who started playing about 14 months ago, and a couple who have joined my game (after several months of expressing a desire to) in the last session.  That last two have been playing in my daughter's campaign, in which I am a player, for six months, so I know them quite well.

5.  How many long-term players (played for more than a third of the campaign) have you had that dropped out?  Were any reasons given?

One.  I had a player who ran a cleric until she was almost seventh level, who then stopped coming around to play.  The other players, who knew her better outside of the campaign - I only knew her as a player - tell me she had a change of life, stopped gaming altogether and stopped talking to her friends.  I was not given a reason by the player; she just stopped appearing.

6.  How many short term players have you had since the campaign started who did not come back?  How many of them gave a reason?

Four.  One that came for two sessions, two that came together for one session, and one who's appearance has been spotty over the last year (younger brother of one of the other players, and still 'technically' in the campaign, though I don't count him).  All but the last are regularly-seen friends of mine, but we don't talk much about D&D.  One of those three occasionally comments on this blog.  That individual sat down at length and described what he found undesirable about my world - specifically, that it was too serious, too focused on ambition rather than on spontaneous fun, heavy on detail and generally not his cup of tea.

7.  How many of the players in your world have never played a roleplaying game before?

Three.  My wife and the two girls who started playing the game 14 months ago.

8.  Estimate the appearance rate of your players.  How often does your campaign run?

About 92-96%, not counting the inconsistent player.  Games are suspended over the summer, but through the fall, winter and spring we play consistently, every two weeks.

9.  Name the three principle reasons for people not appearing in your campaign.

Shift work.  Secondary School.  Family obligations.

10.  How often is it that players in your campaign do not appear without having given a reason?

Never.

Two Seconds Before They See It

I have a quirk.  I know there will be a running on a given day, and I know the location where the party will be either investigating or at which they'll arrive.  There will be an important building, or underground, or description of the area that I ought to have on hand.  But as the game day approaches, I'll do nothing to prepare myself.  I won't design the building, or sketch out the halls, or even look up the information I ought to have.  Instead, I'll spend the whole week working on stuff that won't have the slightest influence on the party's game.

They may be in Hungary, but I'll be mapping parts of India, or Scandinavia.  They'll be on the edge of fighting a horde of mummies, but I'll be working on large mammals dwelling in Africa.  They'll want to spend the session exploring a half-cleaned out dungeon they haven't entered in a year's game time (which they're doing right now), but I'll be working out the trade products for Spain.

Why?  Because I don't 'prepare' in the normal sense.  I haven't in years.  I have gotten so comfortable playing by the seat of my pants that I simply never bother to draw a single micro-map outside of a session.  In the little wedges of time between the party cleaning up after the last room ("who needs healing") and the party deciding what to do about the next one, I'll sketch out the shape of the room, and think quickly to myself, there's a secret switch under that cornice there ... there's a spring that releases gas right in front of the fountain ... the fountain water produces hallucinations ... that's good enough.

I'll figure out what kind of gas out of the DMG if I don't think of an effect myself before the trap is sprung; I'll let myself wax poetic about what kind of hallucinations; and what's behind the secret door that the switch opens I'll figure out if they find the switch.  I am so used to thinking on my feet, and pulling the various random elements of things together at the end so they all make sense, it doesn't seem practical to spend time outside of the session doing that. 

I think the real key is having a sense for structure.  If the dungeon is filled with large insects, even the places behind secret doors, then it should be considered abandoned; who abandoned it, and why?  Obviously, because something really awful is at the bottom.  Is it sentient?  Probably.  But if it's really deep down, it hasn't seen anyone intelligent in years.  It might be lonely.  On the other hand, it might be xenophobic.  But lonely sounds like more fun.  If the party gets down that far, and finds something really horrific that wants to chat for comfort, isn't that unexpected enough to make the session fun?  And it might know something old and ancient.  Or it might be just the gatekeeper for something deeper, something more horrific, even a passage to another plane.  Or not.  Maybe after fighting through dozens of giant beetles, worms, slugs, crawlers and jellies, through level after level, the last room is ... an abandoned - and emptied - treasure vault.  Hm, that would be a pisser.  Which is it, let me see.  I should roll a die.  But not yet.  They're not down that far.  I'll give it a couple more runnings.  Maybe I'll think of a third option.  Then I'll roll a die.

I know I really ought to map it all out and know weeks and weeks ahead of time, but somehow that never matters to me.  The party can't tell the difference, and if I'm playing by the seat of my pants I'm never reading off anything.  It's all in my head as I go along, so there's always eye contact as I describe whatever's coming out of my fertile brain.

Sometimes I get stuck.  Sometimes I have a bad night.  Sometimes, frankly, my mind is just blank.  I've had a bad week, I'm run down, I don't want to control the mob (sometimes I'm up to eight players running); and on those occasions they are either patient with me or we talk it over and quit for the night.

I'm not sure a lot of micro-preparation would be useful for times like that.  If my brain isn't ticking over, it's because in reality I don't want the responsibility of running that night.  Not having to improvise probably wouldn't improve my mood.

It should be evident from the Wiki that in vast part the work I do on my world is macro-design.  The internet has certainly made this easier; it takes two minutes with wikipedia to scan through the details of a town or village, to familiarize myself with the local setting and to start describing what the nobles are doing, what's the latest news from the hinterland or how well the city is faring after the last major event.  Improvisation with this stuff keeps the material fresh, as the rhetoric changes from month to month.  In the big picture I see eventual wars, possible natural disasters or the deaths of important peoples affecting the party ... when I need a shift in the campaign, I'll instigate it.

This pattern of running lets me work freely on whatever large scale trade/mapping/biological design feature that interests me on a particular day, without worrying what my party is doing.  Then, when the party does wish to go to Egypt or China or Morocco, the maps are there ahead of time and the purchase costs at the local market is ready (and can be generated in less than two minutes).  The socio-political landscape I keep in my own head, fed by constant reading of history and other non-fiction texts.

See, it isn't that I design my world ahead of time, it is that I know it.  I know it because I live in it - and so do all of you.

Wiki, December 20, 2010

This last week I have again been working on maps, but moreso upon a character background generation machine in excel which, unfortunately for the general reader here, does not translate well to a blog page.  I have some vacation time over Christmas, so I hope to squeeze some space in between family and get up at least one of the periphery tables, the one that determines what your father taught you.

In the meantime, I offer on the wiki this week the meagre bit that I've added.  More cities tables (will they ever end?) for Poland and Sweden.  And five maps: Balkhash, the Altai Mountains, West Mongolia, the Selenge Basin and a mostly unfinished map that is part of Mongolia/northern China.

I have a reason for including these last four, all of which have large areas that are not finished.  This is the edge of the world as it stands right now.  I worked my way through these four maps last year, trying to map the source rivers for the Yenisey ... that's the part of my maps that isn't done here and here.  I've found that it is easier to map the lower river if the upper river is done.  The Yenisey, however, has several extensive sources, some of which are not even considered part of the origin of that river.  The Selenge River, which most readers will not have heard of, drains north central Mongolia, rising in a bunch of narrow river valleys that join together to flow out of Mongolia and into Lake Baykal.  The outflow for Baykal is the Angara, which then flows 1,100 miles before joining with the Yenisey and flowing into the Kara Sea.  Anyway, to map the Yenisey meant mapping the Angara, and to map the Angara meant mapping the Selenge, which meant working out the four maps above.  All this was done while I was 'on vacation' after my previous position went south when the magazine I was working for up to 2009 died with the recession.

Why bother to say all this?  I want to make it clear that the maps themselves, each being 30x35 hexes, are added as I follow political divisions or topographical features in this direction or that.  I needed to create the map that would allow the little corner of 'done' material that is in the upper left on the Unknown China map ... but I'm really uncertain what comprises the rest of that territory (the Gobi Desert, I think), so it remains unnamed.  It always gets me down a bit when what I'm doing requires 'one more map' - since it means identifying the elevation of every hex on that new map.  Believe me, it's not the sort of thing to be done piecemeal.

I'm not working on any of these maps right now.  I will eventually, and when I do I would like it if regular readers of the wiki would see that the process of building a world is done bit by bit.  Just add another province, and then another, until map after map is done.  That's how it goes.  It's what I recommend for people who design a world, and it's not new advice.  Just work around the edges of what you already have; don't worry about how much you're doing today, or this month ... because eventually what you will have to show will be a huge, sprawling map.

It is a question of having a clear idea of what makes your maps work, so that as you add and expand, you're not going back and doing the same maps over and over and over.

Though I've done that.  Oh yes, I have done that.  Once too many times, I can tell you.

IMech 2: The Quest For Tension

Allow me to begin with two circumstances of roleplay, the first of which has come up four times in the last two years of my campaign, and the second that never comes up for my players, for good reason.

The first is interrogation and torture.  The party is smart enough to realize that killing everything is not always a good idea, that outside a lair they're about to enter it's a good idea to subdue a scout, tie them to a tree and interrogate them for information.

In fiction, this can be a tense, difficult moment.  The victim does not want to give in, but the interrogators must have the information.   It's a physical/mental struggle of the first order.  What will it take to break the victim's will?  How does the victim feed information to the captors, and what can the captors afford to believe?  There are lies on both sides, tactics, techniques, deceptions ... what will ultimately work?  How much can we torture and still retain our self-respect?

In D&D, there's nothing.  Why not take out the knife, stab the victim at once, swirl the knife into the victim's intestines, wash our hands in the intestines, eat the victim's kidney while the victim watches while keeping the victim alive with cure serious wound spells, etc., etc.  There's no emotion here.  And if the victim gives out information, we can know with another spell if its false.  And then kill him without any remorse.  Whether the victim is cooperative or not.  What value is there in letting the goblin live?  It's a goblin.  Get the info, stab it and let's get going.

The problem is that there's no emotional resistance to overcome.  As roleplaying, it's just words.  Now, if I could play it so that every time a player gave orders to stab the creature, I could throw an actual bucket of pig blood on the player, that might create the kind of discomfort/nausea inducing reality that actual torture releases.  Stab him again, another bucket of pig blood.  Some players would get to like it.

Then again, reverse the situation.  Interrogate the player and the answer will be (if the information is actually important), "I'll die first, go on, kill me, I'd rather roll up another character."  Either that or the player sings at once.

In either direction, it feels stupid in the session for A) the players and DM to be saying to each other, "I hit him again," since there's no connection whatsoever to the actual hits; and B) people sitting around a table pretending to scream in pain.  (In a way, making the scream does make some people uncomfortable ... but I play with at least one Dominatrix who likes it when I scream).  Everyone feels like an idiot and the whole situation feels like a farce.

Most IMech solutions have as their focus only one thing: does the prisoner blab?  Roll the dice and the result will or won't give you the information.  But it won't be very interesting as the conflict is resolved with very little emotion.  There's no tension.

Let's leave that on the shelf for a moment and talk about circumstance number 2:  gameplaying within the game.

The DMG gives a page over to the playing of different dice and card games, as has the occasional book put out by the 3rd Edition universe.  I don't know if 4e has, but I'd think it probably does.  It always seems like a good idea - to have players gamble with their coins, to place bets with one another and either lose or accumulate income this way.

Problem is, it's all boring.

One doesn't have to get very old before playing cards for matchsticks or meaningless poker chips becomes pretty dull.  I still play this way occasionally with people too uncomfortable to play for money, but I don't care if I lose, it doesn't mean anything and my heart rate doesn't climb above normal as the pot gets bigger and bigger.  The best game of this variety that I like to play is Rumoli, basically because it's a counting game that requires resource management along with playing poker.

Somehow, the reality that losing hit points will mean that a player will never again be able to run this character in my world is enough to create tension and fear.  But losing thousands of gold coins at the casino hasn't got that kind of emotional pull ... characters have most of the gadgets they need already to return to the lair again and at least pick up food money.  Food isn't very expensive.  A character can live very cheap if they need to (they feel no hunger, lack of companionship, boredom or angst).  If they win, its just another big pile of money, which usually just gets plowed into something else that doesn't really matter, like a storage place for their stuff (house), or a bigger storage place (castle).

So, players will either A) not care about gambling, or B) not care about losing.  The IMech isn't enough to create the tension of loss, since the loss of money does not carry with it the personal discomfort for characters that we are all familiar with.

The IMech solutions I read through yesterday, including those that were linked, are all ultimately based on a two-sided result: what you want happens, or it doesn't.  If it happens, you get the information, if it doesn't, no big deal.  Maybe you can get the information some other way.  The highly railroaded argument presented by this site, posted by Anthony, argues that you've got to provide three ways to give the player a chance at understanding this information ... as though this won't be cottoned-onto by the players, who will soon be sitting in your world responding to your clues with, "I don't get it either, but the next one will tell us what we need to know.  We'll wait for it.  No need to think."

Either way, we're still NOT talking about emotional involvement.  And this is the key.  Combat is more than just rolling dice and getting a resolution.  Combat is not about information gathering.  And just so I don't forget to say this with emphasis, any IMech that is based on information-gathering will suck.  It will suck hard.

Let's look at combat from two sides ... the information-gathering side, and, well, the side that addresses the point I'm moving towards.

If I swing a weapon, I am rolling the dice to see if I hit.  This is information gathering.  The weapon's affect is calculated against the enemy's resources, and an effect is achieved.  This effect is conveyed to me and again, I receive information.  I then make an assessment of the situation on the information I've received and decide what I'm going to do.

If combat was not two-sided ... if it was just me rolling the dice to see if I hit, it would be awfully boring.  Imagine a shooting game in D&D that had the player standing in front of a target trying to hit that target by rolling dice.  Dullsville.  But this is what IMech information-gathering is ... one-sided rolls to determine results.  The clues do not roll dice against you.  And if you miss, all you are is ignorant.  No penalty is incurred.

This is the other side I'm getting at.  Combat has enemies, who are trying to kill you.  There's more at stake than getting information ... you know that if you FAIL to hit, it will allow the other side to try.  That could mean your death.  That could mean a very lucky roll for your enemy that could smash you for twenty-two points that would be devastating.  And that's the chance you take every time you miss killing him.  A chance that comes with every die roll.  It only takes one to kill you dead.

You understand ... there are consequences.  There's more than what you're able to gain, there's what you might lose.

In the gambling problem above, I pointed out that the loss isn't very significant.  It's only money.  Neither is the gain, for the same reason.  Last night, talking about this, I was proposing an ad hoc solution: suppose I laid out the following set of rule:

1) You are able to gamble once per session; you may play for a period not exceeding one hour.
2) You must declare your stake in g.p., that being the number of gold pieces you have on hand at the start of the game.  There is no limit on the size of your stake.
3) When your stake is gone, or the hour has passed, you must stop playing for that session.
4) Wins are not assessed until you declare you are stopping.
5) When you declare that you are stopping, for every 10 g.p. you have more than the amount of your stake at the start of the session, you will receive 1 x.p.
6) Gambling houses may have limits on the size of your bets, or ultimately a limit on the size of your total winnings (depending on the size of the city you are in), but beyond this there is no limit on winning.

This should make anyone deeply indoctrinated into the game take pause.  There's no specific rule against this sort of thing, but it is generally conceded that players shouldn't get experience just for sitting there gambling.  If I start with a stake of 10,000 g.p., and I choose to play in my world's Monte Carlo, I can sit and play roulette at 35:1 odds.  If the bet limit is 1,000 g.p. per spin (and it would be, at least), with ten spins I have pretty good odds of hitting for 35,000 g.p. - 2,600 X.P.!  Minimum, since I'm assuming there that the last spin is the winner.

Maybe not very much for a character that has 10,000 g.p., since they're at least fifth or sixth level, but still ... a lucky player could win enough to push them from fifth to sixth, if they had a good run.

Scoff if you will, but ask your players if they would play, if you were serious.  Don't listen to what their mouths say - watch their eyes as you tell them.  Even as the gentle readers right now are shaking they're heads, they're wondering if it's really all that far out there.

Beyond the point that I wouldn't do it, the real problem is that there's no punishment for loss.  There needs to be.  So let me add this, and really upset the ethical community:

7) For every 100 g.p. you declare as your stake, you must put $1 on the table.
8) If you lose that 100 g.p., the dollar goes in the DM's pocket.  Money won back up to the amount of your original stake will be refunded at the end of playing, but the DM is not required to refund the difference between your original stake and your present g.p.

Now, I don't know about you, but I've had players - joking and serious - who have offered to pay me money for experience.  It is the dark, seedy side of the game that no one talks about.  Business that can only be conducted in the dark hallways between the bathroom and the gaming table.  Let me state very clearly that I have scruples, I don't need the money that badly and that, if it isn't clear, I'm not suggesting that any of this be done.

But I am trying to make a point about REAL gains and losses.  Experience levels and death are real sides of a coin, much more meaningful than information/no information.  An IMech, on some level, must have characteristics that punish the characters for failure.

For months I've been thinking about a post on how the game of D&D is gambling, or rolling dice to get a result.  In gambling, you lose.  Without loss, there is no gambling.

Let's hope you're still with me at this point, because I still have points to make.  Bored yet?  Good, we can move forward.

Like the above never to be implemented example, an IMech which is added to the game is going to change aspects of D&D that will be uncomfortable.  There is a finite number of existing numbered characteristics acribed to the characters - all of which are held to be sacrosanct - and therefore a limited number of things that can be reasonably changed.  Steelcaress makes reference in a comment on the previous post about inventing a new kind of 'hit points,' but I really hate that idea.  It lacks creativity, it divorces the whole IMech issue from other aspects of the character and it really reduces the verisimilitude of the familiar stats that have developed meaning over the years in favor of something that feels 'tacked on' and therefore tacky.

In playing the wins and losses of IMech, the stakes should be things that matter.  Having some other scale of wins and losses only matters if, when the points are reduced to zero, something happens.  Something as permanent and distasteful as death.  Something that makes players stop and panic.

Let's return to the torture scenario, and let's say that our prisoner doesn't want to talk.  Let's say the success/failure roll indicates that the player WON'T talk.  So the player says, "I stab him in the belly with the dagger, and the cleric will stand by if it goes hard with a death's door spell."

(As an aside ... your torturers kill you, actually kill you, just slightly dropping you into the death state, then pull you back from that door to zero h.p.  Every ... damn ... day.  Pretty nasty, that.  Who wouldn't talk?)

In the old system, if the dagger stab doesn't work, we just stab the prisoner again.  But suppose you add a wrinkle, and explain it to the player: "If you coldly draw blood against a helpless victim, there's a 1 in 10 chance of losing a point of charisma.  Permanently."

Watch how quickly how the prisoner's information seems less important.

But if that seems unfair, or drastic, or problematic for assassins, consider this alternative, as I wrap things up:

Reputation.  Assume that anything that happens on account of the party's 'failure' to force information will make its way to the ears of somebody ... if through no other source, than by a failed wisdom-check by the party's dumbest member, who saw the torture (or failed attempt to talk to the king, or failed effort to find the murderer in this town) and just felt the need to talk about it to the local bartender.

What if the players get to be known at those annoying, pestering, supposed do-gooders that can't seem to recognize a goddamned clue if their lives depended on it?  What if the players want to be Sherlock Holmes, but they've blown their rolls so often that now everyone knows they're just LeStrade?  Are you telling me that won't create tension?

This was, more or less, the destination I was going to reach for with the charisma-related post I was going to write yesterday.  I've gotten there by an entirely different means, but the point is still the point.  It isn't enough that there's a roll that must be beaten in order to achieve a success.  There must also be a roll that must be beaten in order to avoid failure.