The Problem

Occasionally I read StackExchange to see what questions D&D players are asking ... and commonly I find queries like this:

"How can I avoid problems that arise from rolling ability scores?

"Rolling ability scores is a time-honored tradition across many editions of D&D. However, it can sometimes cause problems for players and/or the DM. For example, one player character may end up much weaker or much stronger than the rest of the party, which can result in a poor experience for some of the players. In other cases, a player may have their characters repeatedly commit suicide-by-monster so they can try to reroll for higher stats, which can be quite frustrating for the GM and other players.

"What approaches are available to mitigate these problems?

"Note: Answers should ideally be able to prevent both the "Joe rolled all 7s, and his character is useless" problem and the "Karen rolled all 18s and her character makes everyone else's character useless" problem. That is, an answer that only avoids very low average/total scores is not as good as one that avoids both very low and very high average/total scores."

I don't answer these questions on the site, any more than I normally answer questions on Reddit or any bulletin board ~ because these discussions invariably devolve into baiting questions or whataboutisms.  There is an answer to the above question; and it begins with first understanding what's being described.

The "problem" is that the DM, the game as it is played, the usual expectations created by company modules and contest events, perceive that a character with very high ability stats is a "superior" character, as compared to those with average stats ~ and that one with very low stats is, predictably, "inferior."  And this is true, (A) if the DM runs a game that includes a high number of success/fail rolls based on the character's ability stats; (B) if the game itself focuses excessively (more than ordinary) upon bonus/penalty modifiers to those stats to determine success; (C) if the modules being played prepare the DM to focus exclusively on both (a) and (b); and (D) if the mass event includes a feature that rewards "play" based upon the party's success in completing the official module being presented.

If you build the game specifically that way, where every decision being made by the player is followed by the DM saying, "roll to see if you succeed," then obviously we should expect that players able to consistently roll against 17s and 18s will perform fantastically better than those who must consistently roll against 12s and 13s.  If I ask you to play craps, where the rules at the table apply to everyone the same except you ~ because, for you, a 3, 6 and 9 are automatic losers ~ then, yeah, you're going to resent how the game is tipped in favour of those who can roll a 6 without losing all their chips.

I should think most of my readers already know that 5th Edition has been nerfed so hard that this problem was managed by getting rid of players rolling for their character stats.  Essentially, the game writers found the imbalance so insurmountable ~ as told by the game's general audience, who were asked for their input ~ that their only "for sure" correction had to be that every character's stats had to be perfectly balanced with every other player.  After all, equality is the highest virtue.  We need equality to settle, once and for all, the right of every player to feel effective and useful when the game is played.

Those of you playing 5th Edition:  experiencing a lot of equality at the game table?

All that's happened, of course, is that ability stats have become less of a go-to excuse to complain about the lack of fairness that persons feel when something (like the die) goes against them.  But as humans, we don't need ability stats.  We can always find something.

That is because, as humans, we are not equals.  Most of us expect this, accept it and, by the time we cease to be children, move past it.  I'll prove it.  I think it's safe to say that if Ken Griffey Jr. showed up at our company softball game, we'd be glad to meet him, to shake his hand and to let him play.  Obviously, we'd want him on our team ... but we'd also realize that if he were playing, the score on either side wouldn't mean much, as it would depend mostly on how seriously Griffey played.  But here's the thing: in D&D, there is no other team.  There is ONLY our team.  The DM isn't a "team."  If we sat down to play with the "Ken Griffey of D&D," it ought to be pretty obvious from the start that it wouldn't matter what character class he played or what his stats were ... and it wouldn't matter if our stats were higher than his.  He's going to out-think us, out-innovate us, be six jumps ahead of the DM ~ and he'll be funny, clever, charismatic, encouraging, supportive and an all-around helluva guy; because he'll get, like the best players in the game, that while there might be some rivalry between party members, we're not competing against each other to see who "wins."  No one wins.  We all win.  Winning is not what the game is about.  And those who carp and moan about, or lord their lucky rolls over the ability stats of their fellow party members are having bigger problems with their personality than that they need to win at a game without a winning line.

I want to emphasize that many DMs and the public social culture behind D&D push this winning narrative ~ by pressuring us to laugh at players who experience bad luck, or to stand up and scream at the DM upon rolling a 20, "In your FACE!"  And like behaviour that suggests that other players are a personal threat to our comfort and that the DM is the embodiment of the game's persecution of players.  The player who feels they've "got it made" because they've rolled high ability stats demonstrates that we're emphasizing the wrong things in game play.  D&D isn't craps.  It isn't strictly about rolling dice.  It is about setting oneself and one's party up so that when the dice are rolled, we've prepared for bad luck.  We've thought this through and made contingency plans ... and none of us need high stats to make those plans.  None of us should think that high stats will guarantee that a plan works.  And all of us should know that, inevitably, with experience and more levels, those stats are going to mean less and less compared to the battle ready creativity we can bring to any situation.  We're all going to gather more power as we go, according to our real life efforts, smarts, bravery, good sense and willingness to take bad luck into account.

And yet despite that, despite the personal experience hundreds of thousands of players have had trying to solve puzzles or survive against enemies without the wisdom to run when a TPK threatened ... we still think that ability stats are a "problem" because some people will get more and others will get less.  These same people who should have realized that Karen with all her 18s can't be everywhere, and that obviously she is not a one-person army, and that she is bound to draw the greatest amount of direct attacks once she begins to kick ass in a general melee, so that the rest of us are plainly not "useless."  Not everyone on Ken Griffey's team is Ken Griffey ... he's going to need someone at 1st base to throw to.  Granted, at 50 years of age it's possible he can pitch well enough to stop us from ever getting a hit (he's an outfielder), and we'd probably never get him out, but that's beside the point.  If I do catch hold of a pitch, that ball is going way over his head.  My point is that he can't be everywhere; no one can.  Karen isn't going to solve every puzzle, she needs to be healed occasionally (speaking of editions where healing isn't a stupidly easy nerfed thing), she can't fly, she can't breathe under water, she's only one person.  The rest of us are only "useless" if we choose to view the game as a competitive pissing contest ... which it isn't, because if Karen kills half the enemy, we all move ahead.  Not just Karen.  If Ken Griffey Jr. hits a home run and wins the game, the whole team wins.  Not just him.

If Joe throws all 7s ...

[never seen that, but yeah, could happen; never seen all 18s, either, but using 4d6 to roll stats makes rolling an 18 almost as easy as rolling a 7 ... but I digress]

If Joe throws all 7s, then suicides by monster over and over, the "frustration" should absolutely be addressed.  That is, Joe's frustration, not that of the DM and the other players.  Clearly, if Joe is suiciding by monster, Joe has reason to think that if he doesn't have a character with higher stats, he isn't going to be useful, it is because the game is making Joe with his all 7s feel useless.  I am more apt to believe that this opinion of Joe's is not coming from Joe ~ and I am just as inclined to believe that everyone else INSISTS that it comes from Joe.  In other words, that Joe's dissatisfaction is more likely to be ignored and belittled, and that he is bound to be further humiliated for having the poor taste to roll poor numbers, than that Joe is spoilsport.  Given the emphasis that DMs and players DO put on high numbers, and the game balance described above that forces every player decision to become a success/fail roll, Joe has every right to protest and throw the game in the face of his peers.

Either Joe should have the right to re-roll his character, to obtain an accepted minimum (which I do, partly because I have had Joes in my campaign who have been hurt and cannot reconcile themselves with poor rolls, no matter what my campaign awards), or else Joe needs to feel that his numbers aren't really that important.  This requires that everyone at the table feel the same way.  Including the DM.  But it is ridiculous to create a game where Karen's high stats are viewed as making everyone else feel useless, only to then turn around and disparage Joe for not sucking it up and playing his crappy, extra-useless character.  There is something broken here, and it isn't just the game.

Beyond the structure of roll-heavy game designs (and fracturingly competitive game designs), and beyond the win/mock sentiment of game pissing contests, I put the third blame on game campaigns that demand the one player/one character model in game play.  Why shouldn't Karen also have a second character who does not have all 18s?  And why shouldn't Joe also have a second character who does not have all 7s?  Why can't players manage multiple players all living at the same time, allowing parties the freedom to exchange, mix and match different character combinations to different adventures ... so that in this adventure, Karen's second is standing side-by-side with Joe's prime, and in the next adventure Karen is taking on the roll of protecting Joe, giving Joe a chance to prepare, harass the enemy verbally and most of all survive until those ability stats matter less and less in the face of Joe's other gained abilities?  Must we forever look at this game like children in a bus with square wheels?  Can we never look at what's really going on, and reconcile predictable human behaviour with the way we deliberately design games to be confrontational and abusive?

It is really not that hard to change our positions on these things.

Artistry

Being here is half the game.

I don't want to disparage the age we're living in.  I rather like it myself, being one who considers the "good old days" to be a time of creaky, backwards technology and social standards.  Often, I think back on memories of the world when I was pre-teen and such, and wonder how we managed with the terrible content on a black-and-white television, the lack of computers and the painstaking agony of having to record everything using pencil and paper.  I guess we had the 1950s to compare it to.  Admittedly, it did seem very modern at the time.

Still, while there's nothing wrong with today's culture, it nevertheless breeds habits that I find myself evaluating.  Right now, as I drag myself away from Oxygen Not Included and my latest downloads, I must confess I'm often a slave to the immediacy of convenient gratification.  Whereas once upon a time, I had to wait a week to see the next episode of something, or make a visit to a store to buy the complete set of, say, Band of Brothers, at any time today I simply have to conceive of the show, remember I haven't seen it in a decade and, there you are, all in my possession and ready to watch.  I call a company like Skip the Dishes to bring me food, I pause my game on Steam, I check my email to see if anyone loves me, then settle in to watch.  It is a nice world.

But while day after day passes with such marvelous comforts, intellectually and otherwise, I am reminded by the end of each day that hedonism such as this has its limitations.  When I will think back upon this year, five or ten years from now, I won't remember the steaming breaded chicken or the time I last watched Nix and Dick undermine David Schwimmer ... I will think about the posts I wrote on blogger or the other work I put together on my world.  I'll remember what I wrote, because this writing can't be served a la carte.  There's no one who can do it for me; which is why it is this particular comfort, this power to reach out and have others read me, that is truly the best part of living in 2020.  It is the things we do ourselves that is most gratifying.

Following yesterday's post, I felt I owed an explanation to you, my Gentle Readers.  Between episodes, and game play, while making dinner, taking a shower, enjoying a walk outside in the -37 C weather we're having today, I've been thinking about why I didn't quit D&D.  It is easy enough to say, "because I loved it," but that's only an evasion.  It doesn't say anything.  It doesn't explain why.  Or why I've given nearly 41 years to this game, instead of to something else.  Why, when I was done with school, and married, and had a daughter, didn't I think that my free time was gone?  Why didn't I put aside childish things?

To see D&D as a childish thing, I would have had to see writing as a childish thing.  Or acting.  Or that the musicians I knew were wasting their time, along with the poets, the artists, the dancers and the other performers I knew in the 80s and 90s.  I saw no difference between capturing a moment in fictional time through the medium of preparing and presenting a gaming session, and doing it in the shape of a novel, or rehearsing to present fiction on the stage.  And since I did those things in the company of people who were unrestrained about giving their lives to those arts, and prepared to die rather than give it up, it didn't seem strange that I had simply chosen another mode of expression.  True, drama offers the possibility of fame and wealth; and so does writing novels ... though not for most.  And those I knew who thought they were doing it to get rich were almost always the first to quit.  The rest of us kept at because, well, because.

That's still an evasion.  It's easier to give one, however, because sometimes with true love, it's difficult to dissect what's there without making an ugly mess of it.  But I'll try.

Of all the things I loved doing most as a kid ~ and here I mean, going back to when I first became conscious of being a person, when I was five or six ~ I would have to say that expressing myself was highest on the list.  I loved to be heard.  I read voraciously, both fiction and non-fiction; I soaked up films from the television whenever possible; and I asked questions of anyone who would give me an answer that wasn't "because."  [see?  I know an evasion when I hear one]  In turn, this gathering of information piled up in my head and ached to flow out on my tongue ... which it was not permitted to do nearly as often as would have pleased me, because I was kid and growing up in the early 70s when adults still said with a straight, un-ironic face that "children were meant to be seen and not heard."  Talk about why the good old days sucked.

By the time I was twelve, the log jam of having things to say broke and I began to write things down, effusively and all the time.  I didn't fall in love with writing because I loved words or because sentences are beautiful, descriptive images, but because I had a ton of shit to communicate and hey, that's why we invented words.  I'm still communicating, constantly, because I still have a great deal to say.  That is why this blog, and the other one, and the wiki, combine together to make such a prodigious pile [sometimes, some would say, a pile that steams ...].  Because I like to express my thoughts; I like to have my thoughts heard and read.  I like others to know what I'm thinking.  And so that I deserve to be heard, I like my thoughts to be things worth hearing.

D&D was a remarkable, unexpected medium that simply materialized one day, like a bomb dropping out of the sky and destroying my cathedral of thoughts.  The manner in which the game was realized, through talk, and bound by fixed limits, which were fuzzy because of the dice, took hold of a particular set of skills that had already infected my consciousness.  I had always been in love with maps and geography, and here was a game that applied that specific knowledge to worldbuilding.  I was quick-witted and creative, able to speak and think fast on my feet, and here was a game that rewarded those skills with role-play.  I was exhaustively and obsessively well-read in literature, science and history, and here was a game that drew on those subjects like a pump drawing water.  It was like I had been training for a decade so that at 15, I'd be ready to play.  I don't need one hand to count the number of times something similar to that has happened.

Once I got myself sorted, and began to understand the deeper aspects of the game, I flourished as a DM.  I loved the expressive power and complexity of imagination the game enabled.  And once I hit that time in my mid to late 20s that I described in the last post, when people began to fade away, there was no way I was giving that up.  No way.  Even then I was surrounded by people who said it was just a game and that it was childish, but I knew they were wrong.  A children's book can be childish, but that doesn't make every book so.  The way that most people played D&D then, and the way that most play it now, the game IS childish.  But not my game.  Not my world.  I don't believe that my D&D design is any more childish than George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, and frankly I think it is far less so ... and no one out there is saying that Martin should have put childish things aside and quit writing.  Entertainment is one of the most important things that humans do for one another; it is a gift.  Just as Band of Brothers was a gift, from those ready to take the time to write it, adapt it, perform it and make it ready for me to see it.

I don't understand those who cannot understand how essential art is to the health and wellbeing of others ... and how that effort can never be "just" anything.  Through D&D, I can express myself, and illicit emotional response from my players on levels that I can hardly dream of doing through direct writing.  Granted, I try the latter constantly; but with D&D, the shaping of thoughts, tension, elucidation and epiphany are far more profound and esoteric than what I've been able to do with words.  People remember moments in a game for years and years; they remember what they did, they remember what they felt.  They remember the experience as though it happened in their "real" lives ... which, of course, it did.  The monster and the treasure may have been fictional, but the breathless anticipation, the pain of dying or the shouts of joy, those were authentically real.

I will not give up an art form because others are too busy to appreciate art.

Cold Water

With this post, I want to speak only with those people who were born after 1990.  If you were born any time before that, you don't matter.

5th Edition D&D was introduced in late 2014 ... and so those people who began playing the game at the age of 16, are just now coming to the end of their university degree and beginning to wonder whether or not they'll have any time ~ or inclination ~ to play D&D any more.  A great many of those who began playing the "new game" at 16, quit years ago ... but of course, none of them are reading this post.

If you're just inside the boundary I named at the start, you were 24 when the new game was presented ... and since you are still playing D&D and reading about it, I'm willing to make a bet.  Most of the people you personally played with, whether at a game store, or a semi-university club, or just around your dinner table, have quit now.  And among those who haven't quit, almost half are talking about it.  They're telling you, they don't have the time to play, or it doesn't seem important any more ... or the game seems, well, repetitive.

Of those remaining, there's another little bugbear in the room.  They talk about starting campaigns, or picking up their campaign again, or changing genres ... and yet, it never seems to happen.  Or it happens, but after one night of play, nothing.

And then, there's you.  You, reading this blog, and others; you that is still running your campaign; you that remembers the introduction of 5e, and today you still feel about the game exactly the way you did five years and a bit ago.  But all around you, there's a building ennui.  There's that friend who was always there, every Friday night, but now hardly ever shows up.  And when you see the friend, and he or she asks about your game, you can talk about it ... but you always seem to do most of the talking.  Or you have friends that show up for the game sporadically, but when they do, they always want to talk about other things.  They can't seem to focus on the game.  They're not being impolite; and it is great to see them; but still, there's that feeling that they're really there to see you, and not to play.  And they're good friends.  You like it when they come around.  Only, well, you wish it was a bit more like it was in university or college.  Or high school.  Or even, depending on when you were born, like it was in grade six.

For most young people, the window of becoming interested in the game, getting good at the game, tiring of the game and quitting the game all happens in a three or four year window.  This puts us firmly in the second generation of D&Ders ~ except for the reader, of course.  Now, an old sod like me, we slowly gather together a group of long-timers that will die playing this game ... but I remember those early days, when it seemed like every year meant a new crop of players.  And as I got into my 20s, those new players would get younger and younger.  This works out, of course, as being older and older than my players offered me greater respect and attention.  It is far easier to be  26 years old and running early twenty-somethings, than it is to be 16 and running friends your own age.

But there is a very good chance that some readers here, younger than 30 as they are, have lost every player they had.  They watched the players drift away one by one, for numerous reasons, while new players did not materialize.  Today, they love the game; they think about the game; but they don't play the game.  There's no one to play with.

This is what "not quitting" looks like.  And for a great many, who can't give up hope, there's a worse bugbear.  They think about how they need to get out there and find players.  And they think about how, before they do that, they're going to have to get their game world in order.  And make up their mind about the system they're going to play.  And what rules in that system they're going to keep.  And so they think.  And think.  And think.

Only, what if they do that work, and remake their game world, and decide on a system, and build an adventure or two, and find the players to run in their game ~ and the players don't stay.  Like before, they hang around for awhile, but in a year or two (or less), they all just drift away.

Is it worth it?  Because, sooner or later, it won't be.  Sooner or later, you're going to be 35.  Or 40.  And still pretending that there are players out there, even if we're talking two or three weekends a year, when you can find the time to attend the nearest game cons.  Or those you can take time off for.  Sooner or later, maybe, you'll have to quit yourself.  Sooner.  Or later.  Because that's what adults do.  They put childish things aside, and admit, yeah, that was fun, but it's time to be an adult now.  It's time to get on with more important things.  Like my marriage.  And my kids.  And my career.  Along with my house payments.  And whatever else I have to do to make sure I don't mess up my retirement.

Maybe you're like me.  Maybe you've got a gang of fanatics.  Or maybe you're like one of these parents who hooks their kids on the game.  I sort of did (and I'll tell that story again, if I'm asked, but it's already somewhere on the blog).  But kids grow up.  They become adults, too.  And awfully fast.  You might get five or ten years with them; but you know, it will never be like when you were kid, and playing with your friends.

I just thought, a dunk in cold water might ... wake you up.  I don't want you to quit.  I want you to play D&D all your life.  But I do want you awake.  Awake, and active.  Because the nice thing about looking straight at something that scares the shit out of you, it reminds you that you're alive.  And that gaming isn't about thinking, and reading, and clumsily deciding what you're "going" to do.

Gaming is about doing.

Eerie Silences

I want to quote this piece from Pierre Berton's The National Dream, here describing a surveyor, Robert Rylatt, who was given the task of surveying the Howse Pass in 1871.  The pass is some 200 km northwest of Calgary, Alberta ... and at the time, less than half a dozen Europeans had seen it.  For a brief period, it was proposed as a possible route for the Canadian transcontinental railway, but later discarded.

The quote describes Rylatt's initial impression of the land, from Berton's paraphrase of Rylatt's diary:

"On his first Sunday in the mountains, he found himself alone ~ the others were working five miles farther up the pass.  It was his first such experience in the wilderness and he made the most of it.  He watched the sun dropping down behind the glaciers on the mountain tops, tipping the snows with a gold that turned to red while, in the shadowed gorges, the ice could be seen in long streaks of transparent blue.  He watched the glow leave the peaks and the gloom fill up the valleys.  he watched velvet night follow ghostly twilight and saw the pale rays of the aurora compete with the stars to cast [Rylatt's words] 'softening hallows of light around these everlasting snows.'  Suddenly, he began to shiver and a sense of irreconcialable loneliness overcame him.  It was silence ~ the uncanny and overpowering silence of the Canadian wilderness: 'Not a leaf stirred; not the hum of an insect; not even the noise of the water in the creek ~ this being too distant.  I listened for a sound but did not hear even the rustle of a falling leaf ...

"He made a fire, as much to hear the crackling of the wood as for the warmth.  It came to him that no one who had not experienced what he was going through could ever really understand what it was like to be truly alone:

" 'Your sense of being alone in the heart of a city, or even in a village, or within easy distance of fellow beings ... gives you no claim to use the term alone.  You may have the feeline peculiar to being alone ~ that is all.  Listen sometime when you think you are alone.  Can you hear a footfall; a door slam in the distance; a carriage go by?  Or the rumble of one ...?  Can you hear a dog bark?  Have you a cricket on the hearth or even the ticking of a clock ...?

"Rylatt realized that the tiniest of sounds can give a feeling of relief ~ 'the sense of knowing your species are at no great distance' ~ but here, in the solitude of the Rockies, there was only silence."

I've experience that, in those same mountains.  For those who might know, Howse Pass is bounded on the east side by Howse Peak, 10km south of Saskatchewan River Crossing.  There's a lake on the east side of Howse Peak, Chephren Lake, where I've fished and spent the night, some 44 years ago.  There, and dozens of other places in the Rockies, I've heard that self-same eerie silence.

Chephren Lake, with Howse Peak in the background

Learning & Practice

While I struggle with the disparate notions and ideas suggested by travel, there's a distantly related subject I'd like to discuss. Back in October, Carl Olson was writing about four-hour blocks of time, discussing what we might do with that time or how it might be managed in game terms. And I found myself this last week thinking about players ambling along, "discovering" things, with the notion that they might also be giving themselves more time to occupy themselves with things that mattered. The most obvious being, a bard sitting to write a song or scratch out poetry.

But of course, not every character is a bard, so what do the other characters do with their free time when the bard is creating? Well, we're told the fighter is sharpening weapons and practicing with them, the cleric is praying, the monk is meditating, the druid is passively walking in the woods and feeding squirrels and presumedly, the thief is sleeping and dreaming of money.

None of these things, however, advance the actual character's experience in the game. Fighters don't have to practice with their weapons, do they? I mean, we assume they do, and that this somehow equates to the process of going up a level, with experience numbers passing a certain goal post being seen as a "tipping point" for where all that practice and weapon sharpening raises the fighter from 3rd to 4th level. But then again, suppose a fighter doesn't practice? Suppose a cleric doesn't pray and suppose a druid doesn't care about squirrels?

Some will jump ahead of me here and imagine that I'm proposing a fighter has to say, "I practice" on a regular basis or else they'll drop a level in experience, or fail to level, but NO, that's not of any interest to me. I don't like rules that penalize the players for not role-playing, or that take away skills the players already have ... at least, not for arbitrary nonsense like having to declare their actions. I'd rather go on assuming that fighters practice and druids walk with squirrels. Instead, however, I'd like to bring the Gentle Reader's attention around to a proposal that might be seen as positive.

Why can't the fighter pray, or the cleric feed squirrels, or the druid practice with weapons? Are there benefits from such actions? And can those benefits be rendered in game terms?

Continued on the blog, the Higher Path, available through my Patreon. Please support me with a $3 donation and gain the complete series of estate posts related to the post above, as these have all been written.

Discovery

With regards to travel in the world, one difficulty I've given myself is something I'm calling, "discovery."  This is the uncovering of knowledge and opportunity in a given hex that the party has entered, which might include anything.  For example, the party might discover an abandoned wagon that could be fixed and made serviceable, or that the local lord had a peasant girl recently executed on pretext, to cover up an affair.  It might mean that a recent disaster has left the area with very little food for the winter, or that a local artist has begun to produce unexpectedly good works.  It might be anything that would interest the party, or make them laugh, or cause them to take an action, or encourage them to hurry on their way before becoming involved.  And the number of things it might include could be, well, infinite.

The idea is rational and would provide texture to the campaign.  The process of rule-making, however, that is another matter.  I have only poor ideas of how one might bring the thing about ... and I must say that thinking on it hasn't been encouraging.

I don't think it is a new idea.  We see people creating tables that give "adventure ideas" all the time.  I think such tables are a stale form of game design.  They almost always include incidents that won't work very well, and of course there's no point in building it into a table, since most of the results shouldn't be repeated in a campaign.  Once the players have saved a town from bandits, it's not an adventure we want to run again.

At the same time, I haven't any specific method except some kind of list, that could be dredged up and then shuffled, with each line being rubbed out once it's employed in the campaign.  Some things could be reused ~ such as learning that the village has an oversupply of something, that the players could pick up for cheap.  Likewise, there might be an opportunity for players to unload something they have for a decent price.  Too, meeting a sage of some kind, with unusual knowledge about a specific sage study, would be repeatable.  The objects would change, the knowledge would vary, but the situation has legs and could be of service again and again.

I can see two conditions that would organize what could be discovered.  The first would be the form of route the players were taking through the hex.  A highly civilized environment would introduce one set of discoveries, while a stark wilderness area would offer another.  Between the two could be a blend of both, shading from urban to rural in shape and design.

Secondly, I think the speed with which the party moved through an area would change what was found.  I see a table that would ask parties if they wished to move along the road at a normal pace, or in a hurry, to get where they were going ... or if they wished to amble along, to see what there was to see.  The latter would increase the chance of finding or seeing unexpected things, while those moving along as quickly as possible would simply miss what there was to find.  The party could then choose which speed of travel best suited them.  The onus of producing discoveries to be found would be placed on the DM, if the party wished to slow down and enjoy the journey.

Obviously, a few dozen ideas scratched out on paper couldn't be sufficient.  Discoveries would have to fit the locale, they would have to fit a set of principles, they would have to be meaningful to the party and they would have to emerge in a random but pleasant manner, one that the players could control in a sense and which they would want to appear.  The former technique of the DM rolling an encounter die, only to produce groans from a party, should die an ugly death [heh heh].

This is my thinking so far on the subject, more or less.  I have notions in my head as to what could be discovered, and why the players would enjoy the discovery ... but a formal structure for the creation and ordering of discoveries is as yet beyond me.  It is a thinking problem.  And so I will need to think.

Distance and Time

Over the past years, going back decades, I have tried to produce various versions of the table shown, here provided by dungeonbot.  And while the effort here is at least somewhat gritty, I must admit that numbers alone are simply not adequate.  Somehow, the structure proposed, exactly the sort I've made myself over and over again, fails to capture any meaningful nuance of what happens when players move from one part of the world to another.  And this is a problem, as any quick search of "make D&D travel more interesting" on youtube will show.  There are no satisfying answers to this question that I've found.  All the pundits that I've found advise the DM to do things that will probably work only once, without addressing the fundamental problem of a game world: it is too big to effectively fill if the party is going to travel distances requiring more than a week.

I have always tried to solve the problem of space with descriptive paragraphs intended to capture a mood.  For example, with the Juvenis campaign, I described the party's approach to their first adventure thusly:

It is not a long walk around the south edge of the lake, and now that it looks like the brewing storm has melted away and given to clear ~ if somewhat crisp ~ skies, you make fair time. Those who have been playing with the clothing insulation calculator will notice they have to take off some of their clothing to avoid taking damage today, as it is hot climbing over deadfall and not tripping over roots.

There is a lot of snow on the ground around the lake, in trenches and low places, but these are easily avoided. The lake, however, is completely clear of ice. The party rounds a hill on the west side of the lake and begins across a flat boggy meadow plain that slowly tilts upwards as they go northwest, into the wind. Occasionally you have to cover your noses with a hand to warm the skin, but it is not cold enough to cause much distress.

In light of such efforts, it may seem incongruous to insert some number to determine how far the party actually gets, but of course that information (whether we state it or not) is relevant to the matter of investigating into a wilderness.  As any one who has done some serious back country hiking will tell you, hours matter.  You can't spend too many of them on the way out, or you will find yourself in trouble before you can get back.  And every pound you hoist on your back will slow you down and bring fatigue ... whereas not enough equipment can mean a very unpleasant night, even if the weather doesn't turn bad.  Time is a critical factor in any travel ... and however poetical the passage above sounds, I'm deliberately glossing over how much time the trip takes because, factually, I don't actually have an answer.

Oh, sure, I can pull up a number for distance/time like shown on the table above ~ but is that number really accurate?  Or is it just a flat number that is automatically applied to every wilderness, as though wildernesses are all alike?  Obviously, they're not ... and such numbers never take into sincere account matters like the party's knowledge of the area, the knowledge of wilderness spaces, how much is carried and how believable it is that a mage can keep up with a ranger over such country.  I have hiked with people who were not up to it; not everyone is and such resolve does not exist in everyone.

So, in fact, the number is pretty nigh useless, if we really want to grasp the matter of travelling.  And if we want to make players feel the travelling that they ask their characters to do.

This is my headspace at the moment, where I am thinking the problem of travel through from end to end.  It is the reason why I find myself reaching to make the combat round shorter, because that is the one change I can make that doesn't call for a drastic restructure of the entire combat system.  The adjustment to a shorter time span for the round may seem rushed ~ but it aligns with actual walking speed, which is the more important matter here.  And while I don't want to get absurdly gritty with the travel system I'm considering, I must admit, ANY system I design must align with what other systems I've previously built.  At this time, I may be unready to incorporate how well your dinner is settling on your stomach with how far you can walk or ride today, the rational approach at this time is to make room for that becoming a thing at some point.  There is NO point in my building a deepened travel system that doesn't account for all the directions that travel system might eventually go.  Otherwise, I'm only creating headaches for myself further down the road.  Who knows what I might wish to add in 10 years?

[incidentally, my daughter has been playtesting the nutrition rules with her campaign for a couple of months now, and says her party loves them; most reassuring]

I haven't put something on the wiki yet because, even scratching the surface, I'm waist-deep in a river that just looks to get deeper.  Starting out with the question of how far can a person walk given the number of action points (AP) they have, I realized that the difference between the road and the wilderness isn't enough.  One road is very not like another, so that I found myself settling in to make categories for every sort of route the party is likely to travel, short of untracked wilderness.  It made sense to tag the route-type to a 20-mile hex's infrastructure, which then brought up the subject of crossing rivers, whether by ford, ferry or transshipment, depending on the width and depth of the obstruction.  Obviously, the existence of these would be tagged by the infrastructure also ... and having resolved upon that, I found myself thinking about tolls and costs for such things, leading to the table below.

table may be subject to change before appearing
on the wiki.

The various sorts of routes, eight in all, would be progressively more difficult to walk, include less drainage, have more bends and deviations around topography, more tight places, a greater likelihood of being washed out or flooded, etcetera ... reducing the straight-line distance between two points and the time it would take to get there.  But though I had originally intended to include the road's effect on foot travel based on the encumbrance of the traveller, I realized I only have encumbrance numbers for walking ... because until now, I've not applied encumbrance to how loaded down an animal is, considering both that which is carried by the animal and that which can be pulled by the animal.

And this is a problem also, because while a horse, say, can carry a rider a greater distance in a shorter amount of time, a horse becomes tired after six hours of being ridden.  This means that some of the distance the animal travels will be while it is led ... and that speed will depend on how much the rider chooses to carry while leading the animal.  Which, in turn, makes it very difficult to produce a simple table.

And, of course, the categorization of various route surfaces is child's play to the possible types of wilderness to be crossed in absence of a road.  And I would also like to take into account such things as weather, orientation, pathfinding, supplies, the discovery of resources such as fresh water, matters relating to camping and how much free time a day a character can find while all these other things are going on.  After all, not every minute is spent in travelling.

All of that is pretty gritty ~ and for some, definitely not the way they'd want to go with their world.  But I think most of that resistance results from the fear of whatever work might be involved in calculating out the specific details.  Which is why, as I'm doing the work, I will have an eye for how to save it where it comes to calculations.

However, I think in the long term, the greater win will be in having a more definite idea of the space being crossed, and explored, if the method of exploration isn't limited to merely distance versus time.  There needs to be a clear understanding of what that distance is, and just exactly why this amount of time passes when crossing it, all of this being wrapped up in a deeper understanding of what it means when the party decides to leave the trail and see where that takes them.

P.S.,

I had meant to post this on my closed blog ... but as long as I've posted it here, it can stand.  Further content about travel, an encumbrance table for animals drawing or carrying loads, and more as I create it, can be had by donating $3 to my Patreon account.

Enough Classes

On my closed blog, The Higher Path [available through Patreon], I addressed how the general discussion of D&D on the internet fails to intrinsically address the game's design flaws.  More often than not, the rush to give opinions about subject material such as rangers and alignment is apt to produce a lot of tribal flag-waving, without effort to draw conclusions.  We either use, or do not use, alignment, and we're ready as a community to argue endlessly about it ... but useful, concrete evidence of alignment's use or non-use remains absent from the discussion.  This is true of virtually every discussion related to D&D, and roleplaying in general.

Consider alignment as a convenient example, as the lines are already drawn in that conflict.  My personal take is that alignment is not necessary.  It is irrelevant to me what it adds to the game; but it was plainly clear, from those early days when I tried alignment, what it detracted from the game.  On the whole, we spent far more time discussing and debating the specifics of the rule than we spent using it.  Players automatically moved to circumvent the rule, universally.  Game time was lost in discord and argument.  Preparation time was wasted attempting to define alignment ~ and no matter what definition was offered, players would view the results with resentment.  Consensus was not possible.

And so, no matter what alignment added, the price was too high.  So I ditched it.  Players, I said, could do what they wanted, within the game's limits.  Immediately, consensus.  Resentment evaporated.  Game time progressed towards more fruitful discussions.  There were no longer any restrictions on attitude and character that required circumventions.  Debates on character evil/good evaporated.  New players entering the game, expecting to find alignment, adapted almost immediately the absence of the rule.

Those who argue for the value of alignment, or any other rule, never seem to address the behaviour of the players to that rule.  Never mind if there ought to be some penalty for some behaviour ... if the penalty compromises the pleasure and momentum of the game, we are penalizing the wrong thing.  We ought to have learned that lesson from social experiments like Prohibition and the War on Drugs, both of which have been exhaustive, non-productive, disastrous failures of policy and intention, based on the premise that there "ought to be some penalty" for this sort of behaviour, as imposed by people who do not partake.

As another example, consider the ever-present motivation that has existed, since very early in the game's history, to expand the number of classes that players can play.  In every case that I've seen, there are two arguments that are always made to justify the existence of the new class:

1) that, logically, persons of this profession are defined differently in an historical or literary sense, such as sorcerors, warlocks and witches.

2) the presence of the profession is commensurate with the underlying culture and motif of D&D, particularly in literature that is filled with such things as chevaliers and barbarians.

This is followed by some elaboration of how the character class would be interesting to play, and how it offers a new experience for the player.  However, what is not included is any discussion of how this might usefully change the game milieu, or generally advance the players' participation beyond the limitations of the new class's most obvious application.  A "fighter" covers a vast multiplicity of individual behaviours, essentially every form of possible application of combat and military training used to solve problems ~ whereas a barbarian is essentially a stereotype of one sort of combatant, with limited knowledge and cultural expectations built in.  "Magic user" defines any person that uses magic, obviously; subdivisions don't add to the game's structure or player behaviour, except to flagrantly subdivide the magical schematic in order to specialize the field to where, hopefully, emasculated forms of the original will have less power complimented by further stereotypical applications to character behaviour.

Is this really the point of the game?  To transform general freedoms of action in order to stipulate what sort of player actions "appropriately" fit a descriminate, prejudiced perception of what's expected of a player ... all the while selling the notion that more choice is more freedom.  There is no freedom in choice once the choice is made.

That only encourages boredom with narrower character concepts, promoting increased flipping of player from character class to character class, sabotaging the game's appeal towards masterfully building something unique and personal over the length of the campaign.  Instead, we give you something unique at the Start, and then tell YOU that your job is to live up to IT.  Character classes as shackles.  Gawd.  What a concept.

This conclusion will have been lost on some, so let's be clear.  When I want to run a character in your game, am I defined by what I do, or am I defined by what I want?  Is my personality based on the assigned conditions of my character class, or is it based on my ongoing, session-to-session actions?  The way the game has gone for more classes, it sounds to me like I'm supposed to believe the former.  That I am a sorceror because my character sheet says I am one.  But I think I am a mage, who uses magic to solve problems in ways that I invent, not in the way that my character class invents.  And I think that the way I act, and what I do, ought to be up to ME, and not what the class description says, or what the DM says.  And I feel that the game's design ought to stop putting me in cultural boxes and just get the hell out of my way.

I don't get excited by my character's class.  I like that it offers me certain tools, that I can work with ... but what I choose to "be" will be my choice, and not the game's.  So thank you, just let me pick some spells or a weapon, because that's what I need.  I don't need stereotypes.  I need points to jump off from.

The essentials of this game are that the DM is going to describe what I see, and then I'm going to cope with that.  There are shackles enough, thank you.  I can only run so fast and hit so often.  I am only as exceptional as the dice and my experience allows.  I am only as clever as my brain lets me be.  I don't need rules on my behaviour, my beliefs, my morality, my literary responsibilities or additional boundaries on what my character class "stands for."  The genius of the original fighter was that it didn't stand for anything.  It's a shame that this lesson was not extended to all the other classes.  If it had been, we'd have enjoyed less stupid fights at the game table for ridding the game of all that, too.

Mazes and Monsters: a Breakdown

Mazes and Monsters is a 1982 made-for-TV morality play that warns viewers against the dangers of participating in role-playing games, suggesting that the game form appeals to those with deep neurotic impulses. Directed by Steven Hilliard Stern, a group of college students indulge in the game called Mazes and Monsters, until one of their number, Robbie Wheeling, becomes unable to separate fantasy and reality, filling his head with voices and sending him off on a confusing quest related to the unsolved disappearance of his brother, years ago.

Heavy-handedly, the film attempts to identify the playing of role-playing games as a partial cause of Robbie's mental illness, though it is clearly established that his behaviour is part of a pre-existing pattern prior to the film. Additionally, it is equally established that Robbie's parents are self-motivated and unwilling to properly manage these earlier patterns, ending in Robbie being thrust irresponsibly into the same circumstances and stress-related environment that previously caused his earlier, unexplained break-down.

Continued on the blog, the Higher Path, available through my Patreon. Please support me with a $3 donation and gain the complete series of estate posts related to the post above, as these have all been written.

New Sage Ability

The content below is a copy of the wiki post, which is part of bard sage abilities connected to being a ceramics maker and designer.  In my game, not all bards are musicians.  Publishing this, I'm going to write a further deconstruction of the content on my other blog, The Higher Path, available through my Patreon.

CERAMIC ORNAMENT (sage ability)

The skill enables the amateur ceramic glazer to transform a pre-existing modelled article of clay pottery, stoneware or porcelain into a warm, idiosyncratic object that has the potential to be immediately adored by a character for the sake of its dilettante quirkiness and modest imperfections.

Making

Unless the glazer also possesses sufficient skill to make the ceramic to be transformed, the object must be obtained from a potter of at least amateur ability, prior to the object being fired. The glazer then makes the flux, decides if the object requires an underglaze or overglaze, as well as other considerations that may apply, and these together are fixed to the object in order to create an ornamental piece. This may be any aesthetic object made of ceramic, such as a cup, pitcher, bowl, plate, spoon, urn and so on. The object is limited in size to the hand span of a typical human, or seven inches in diameter.

A minimum of tools is required to mix the flux and apply it ~ a small putty knife, brush, half a dozen pots for mixing the flux, a hand fan for drying, with other materials to be named. The image may be of any conceived variety, including geometric patterns or even just the effect of a rich or desirable color that catches the light. Application of the design will be 2-5 hours, with each turn in the kiln taking a full day, to fire and dry the piece. A kiln worker can be hired if the character does not own a kiln, or does not know how to operate one. The cost of materials and kiln varies depending upon where the work is being made.

Most probably, the glazer will need to make several attempts at the object. A success upon the first try is 5%, +5% cumulatively per attempt thereafter. Thus, a glazer would have a 25% chance of success on their fifth try. If the glazer is not operating the kiln, another attempt can be made while the first object is fired; or several attempts can be made and fired all at once. Success cannot be determined until after the ornament has been fired.

Objects made after the first success will continue to increase in likelihood (so that some efforts may yet fail), but after a measure of 100% has been reached, the glazer may continue to turn out like objects, each requiring no more than two hours per ornament.

Appreciation & Benefits

Once the ornament can be regarded as a success, the glazer should then share the piece around for others to view. Of those who see it, 1 in 20 will regard it as something special enough to want it for their own. The actual value will not be high ~ approximately three times the typical cost of the original ceramic. The glazer may charge for the ornament or give it away ~ but none of the benefits for generosity listed below will accrue to the maker of the ornament.

The character (NPC or Player) who then possesses the ornament will quickly begin to adore and appreciate it as something sentimental, so long as it is not broken or otherwise ruined. Once a week has passed, the pleasure of using or handling the object for a minute a day will convey a sense of well-being that will affect the character’s good spirits, particularly with respect to others. Whatever act of selfless acts the character might perform, in the way of spells, work done, kindness provided and so on, gains a 10% bonus. Acts must be truly selfless for the bonus to take effect.

A healing spell would heal 10% more hit points, work would be performed 10% faster, an effort to save a person by carrying them from danger would increase the encumbrance capacity of the ornament’s owner by 10% and so on. Risking all to defend a helpless friend would add 10% to the d20 roll. Further examples may be included here once they have presented themselves in play.

A single character only has enough personal love and adoration for one such object, sadly.

Generosity

If two persons or more, viewing the object while still in the possession of the glazer, both roll a 1 on a d20, it should be noted that the object cannot be shared. However, the first person to renounce the object out of generosity for their peer, will gain a +20% bonus to all selfless acts that day (while the new owner would receive no benefits for another week). No other immediate benefits would be gained by the generous character after the day had ended (count sunset as the end of each day, with the new day beginning immediately thereafter).

However, should the ornament ever come back to the generous character, as a legacy of the owner who has passed on or has retired their character from the campaign, the ornament then becomes a keepsake. As a keepsake, the piece will now benefit its new owner in the ways described above, AND the new owner will also gain a +1 to the ability stat matching the primary attribute of the previous owner. For example, if the previous owner was a cleric, the new owner’s keepsake would increase the new owner’s wisdom by one point ~ so long as they used or handled the object pointedly that day.

Once the object is broken, all benefits are lost. There are no negative penalties for a broken ornament.

See Glaze

My Daughter Shows Me Her D&D

Here is a video in which my daughter explains how she's transferred my wiki content to books that she uses to run her campaign.  I find it exciting to hear my own passion being reflected in her voice ... sometimes, it is great to be a father.




Speaking of the wiki, I've added new content today and one post several days ago.  And I've updated this page on the wiki, which you should read first to understand some of the other new content.

Bard Sage Abilities

Plus more:

Modelling (sage study)
Use of Materials (sage study)
Fortification (sage study)
Construction (sage study)
Architectural Aesthetics (sage study)
Tortoise (Mordenkainen's)

Destiny

There is a post that proceeds the post script below, discussing the relationship between Starship Troopers and D&D, destiny and adventure design.  As well as a deconstruction of the book. but that post is included on my other for-pay blog, The Higher Path.

However, I wish to make the post script public, because I like to push the things I love ~ and I haven't found anyone yet on the internet ready to do that for this book.

Post Script,

I am well aware of the criticism of this book. It is plain from the linked resource that many readers, particularly critics, have brought a great deal of baggage about the military, politics and quite a lot of other things not included in a literal reading of the novel ~ and who have then argued that a literal reading of the novel is itself an unacceptable social and political reaction to the book. I consider all of this sentiment to be a load of dingo's kidneys. There are no statements of fascism in the book at all, except to those without any understanding of fascism. There are no statements of "rah rah military" in the book, except from those who plainly have no understanding, or no ability to understand, that the military is not a garden party, and that we do not make weapons nor teach the use of weapons so they can be held prettily in parades on Remembrance Day.

If anyone wishes to discuss the book with me, I would be delighted. However, if it is the reader's purpose to deride or criticise the message of the book, I had better see exact quotes from the novel, with specific page numbers or chapters, and context, or else I intend to delete your comment. Prior to writing this post, I read half a dozen criticisms of the book and not one of them gave a single quote from the novel. This is appalling. But then, it is also what I came to expect from some English and Poly Sci professors in university.