I’ve been re-reading my Knights Of The Dinner Table collection lately, and eventually reached the issue in which Brian discusses just how bad it can be for the players when the GM starts his adventure by putting a prophecy in the heads of the players.

What happens, according to this character in the comics, is that the mere fact of a known prophecy makes players tend to read everything that happens into that prophecy, whether it fits or not. In the process, they are prone to making unwarranted assumptions and speculative interpretations that they treat as fact.

These sources of error leech into the decision-making process where they proceed to warp the judgment of the players, and through them, the PCs.

A prophecy, he believes, is an open hunting license for the GM to let the players screw with themselves.

In the plot, this point is proven right when the Monks that are mentioned in the prophecy turn out to be monkeys who can throw sling-stones with terrifying accuracy and more than a little force. This is a problem because the PCs planned to rest and recuperate and buy food and equipment at the monastery in which they expected to find the Monks.

In “I know what’s happening!” – Confirmation Bias and RPGs, I wrote of the phenomenon of confirmation bias and how it could blind people to even directly-contradictory sources of information. This is quite obviously just another example of that blinkered myopia.

But it got me to thinking: What are all the things that can be stuffed into something called a prolog, i.e. some sort of prelude to the actual adventure, and what is the significance and impact of doing so? In other words, what are all the different ways of starting an adventure? I compiled an extensive list – but we’ll get to that in part 2.

Definition

Perhaps we should start by defining and understanding our terminology. What exactly is a prolog (or, as everywhere but the US usually spells it, Prologue)?

According to the Collins Concise English Dictionary, a prolog is (1) The prefatory lines introducing a play or speech; (2) a preliminary act or event; (3) (in early opera) an introductory scene in which a narrator summarizes the main action of the work; or (4) (in early opera) a brief independent play preceding the opera, especially one in honor of a patron.

Gee, that doesn’t seem all that helpful. In modern fiction, modern film-making, and in RPGs prologs have their place within the narrative structure of a story and none of those seems to be a perfect fit – while, at the same time, all but the first seem at least partially descriptive, but inconclusively so. It’s as though the dictionary were circling around a functional definition – singular – while never quite getting to the point.

Since I wasn’t that impressed with the dictionary meaning’s adequacy, or lack thereof, I put my thinking cap on and came up with my own, far more functional definition:

A foundation (usually provided in a prefatory manner) to establish (1) facts, situations, relationships, or any other context for the events within the main action, or (2) the interpretation or meaning of such events, either literal or symbolic (in which the term ‘symbolic’ includes metaphoric and all similar forms of narrative context).

That’s still a lot to take in, so let’s break it down a little.

A foundation
The prolog is what the main story is built on or around.

(usually provided in a prefatory manner)
Prologs are usually at the start of an adventure but don’t have to be; they can occur anywhere that they have good reason to exist within the narrative.

to establish
This term is especially important because it describes the purpose of prologs within their modern usage – they are to provide the readers (fiction), viewers (movies, plays, etc), or players (rpgs) with information that can’t be justifiably channeled through their characters.

(1) facts, relationships, or any other context for the events within the main action,
This information is for one of two purposes – either to frame a context within which the experiences of the protagonists (fiction, movies, etc) or the PCs should be interpreted;

or (2) the interpretation or meaning of such events, either literal or symbolic.
…or, to reveal hidden meanings or relevance to those events that should be perceived to get maximum entertainment value from the story, but of which the characters participating may not be aware – until it’s too late.

The information to be relayed is one of the major variables to impact on the nature of the prolog. It can be anything from background information that the characters concerned cannot possibly know, to information that their characters can be assumed to have but that the players need to be made aware of so that their choices of action can be appropriately influenced by this knowledge. It might introduce a key character, or reveal a relationship (or advance one if one has been pre-established); it might do nothing more than place the protagonists/PCs within their ‘ordinary’ lives prior to the impact on those lives of extraordinary events.

In other words, in an RPG context, a prolog is a way of giving the players information that their characters either don’t have or that the characters do have and that the players don’t. It’s about creating a more fully-realized world-view of the in-game campaign environment to enhance the adventure in some way.

The manner and nature of that enhancement is a second major variable. It could be anything from providing a philosophic foundation, or relaying a popular moral standpoint, or raising a theological issue, or simply letting characters experience their day-to-day lives before the rug gets pulled out from underfoot. It could offer a counterpoint to the adventure, or an undercurrent to it, or provide an ironic twist, or foreshadow the future in some fashion, either explicitly, implicitly, symbolically, or metaphorically, or in any other way that the GM can think of.

Necessity & Function

Some writer’s sites suggest writing a prolog when you are confronted with Writer’s Block and then doing everything you can to eliminate it in revision. Certainly, if you’re the type of writer who redoes everything umpteen times as your form of revision, that might be an answer. But it’s not a philosophy that I agree with.

Another site that I found while researching this article suggested (1) removing any prolog to determine whether or not it was strictly necessary to the story, and then (2) labeling it Chapter 1 to see if it really had to be a prolog. That’s excellent advice if you’re writing a novel – up to 2/3 of readers admit to skipping prologs, after all – but it’s not that helpful when it comes to RPGs. Since we can’t predict what PCs will do, we can’t predict what turns the story will take, and therefore have no way of knowing what will be important to the story and what won’t.

That means that we need a different yardstick to determine the necessity of any prolog that we attach to one of our adventures. Fortunately, the interactivity of RPGs means that it is much harder (but far from impossible) to overuse some literary devices for the conveying of information, such as delivering it through the mouths of NPCs. That means that we can err on the side of exclusion – if there is any doubt that the prolog is necessary, it probably isn’t.

So what makes a prolog necessary?

• Action taking place in an unusual location
• Action taking place in a time remote to that of the main action
• Establishing of a mood or tone that might not be obvious from the first scene of the adventure
• Providing information that the PCs have but their players don’t, that will have to be taken into account during the making of decisions
• Getting players’ heads’ “in the game”
• Placing an adventure into a particular context
• Introducing or enhancing a character that the players either don’t know or don’t know well enough.
• Providing a different perspective that is essential for the in-story decisions of a character to be believable and not random.
• Enhancing the drama of the adventure’s climax by providing a preview shorn of all context.
• Making past events that have been influential on an important NPC more vibrant by presenting them in a time-shifted “now”
• Delivering information that absolutely cannot be provided in any other way.

It is the last of these that is the key to all of them – if there is any other way of delivering the information to the players / PCs except a narrative info-dump, it is probably preferable to use that method and eliminate the prolog.

Necessity, in other words, is a combination of the function that the prolog is to serve within the story and the absence of acceptable alternative delivery methods.

Traits of Prologs

Most prologs consist of narrative delivered by the GM. If there’s a way you can make them interactive with one or more PCs, much of the advice offered by this article needs either to be modified or even disregarded completely, because the context of the prolog will be entirely different. I’ll get to the question of interactivity a little later.

But if there is little-or-no interactivity, it’s all-eyes and all-ears on the GM. And that brings me to the number-one point uncovered by my research, stated time and time again (in different ways, admittedly): Prologs Can Be Boring. Avoiding this problem is critical, for obvious reasons, and the best way of doing so is to make sure that your prolog follows the traits outlined below. Sure, you can break these rules if you know what you’re doing – but even then, think twice about doing so. It’s easy to over-rate your own cleverness.

• Prologs are Short – I know I’ve talked about this already, but it’s so important that it bears repeating, especially since one of the key metrics (fraction of chapter length) is not something that’s available to RPG Adventure writers. Instead, estimate the time required to “play through” the prolog – if it’s more than half-an-hour with PC interaction, the prolog is too long, and if it’s more than ten minutes without such interaction, it’s definitely too long.
• Style and tone should match that of the main plot – unless the contrast is the purpose of the prolog, of course. Note that this doesn’t mean that the opening scenes or even the opening Act have to match the main adventure in tone – it’s an entirely adequate structure to have:
  • A prolog establishing the tone of the main plot
  • An opening act that is completely different in tone and all about how the characters reach the point of experiencing the tone established in the prolog
  • A rest-of-the-adventure that matches the prolog in tone.

  It’s probably not going too far to claim that establishing the dominant tone in the prolog frees the GM from the responsibility of doing so in the first Act.

• Limit the background information to what can be contained within 1/20th of the entirety, by page count, assuming both main text and prolog are written in your usual style. If there is any doubt about that consistency, use a ratio of 1/25th. So, if your adventure is 50 pages long, you can’t afford more than 2 1/2 pages of background at best, 2 pages if there is any danger of that information being more compressed. And if you don’t think that danger exists, use the shorter limit anyway and leave the extra half page as margin. Similarly, if your adventure is 5 pages long, you have a limit of 1/4 of a page for background, falling to 20% if in a different style.
• A prolog must contain a hook to get the players interested, preferably near the start. Note that this does not avoid the necessity of presenting a hook in the opening scenes of the Adventure.

Prolog vs Preface, Foreword, and Introduction

A lot of people confuse these, because they are all found at the start of a written work. I doubt that this is true of any Campaign Mastery readers, but why take chances?

A Preface is a section of text written from the point of view of the author, to explain the origins, development, legacy, or aims of a story, and often acknowledges contributions by others. Prefaces are more common in non-fiction but are often found in fiction as well. If the GM talks to the players about the development of the adventure, or where he got the idea from, that’s the RPG equivalent of a Preface.

A forward is written by a critic, subject matter expert, or other public figure, who is NOT the author, and usually connects the themes or content to their own experiences, especially their experiences and reactions when reading this work (or some other work by the same author). It’s reasonable to say that if a player offers an opinion or suggestion back in response to the GM’s “Preface”, they are supplying a “Forward” to the day’s play.

An introduction is also written from the point of view of the author and provides additional information to help the reader understand the subject and/or historical or publishing context of the work. Again, if the GM induces a conversation about a particular subject by mentioning it in his preface while having the explicit and slightly duplicitous intent of using that conversation as a vehicle for ensuring that players know information that will be relevant to the adventure, that is an Introduction. This differs from a Prolog, which could be used to convey that information ex-cathedra, in that it (1) takes place at the player-GM level and not an in-game level, i.e. third person and not first-person; and (2) by their nature, conversations are interactive.

Prologs exist to do a job, and if the author is aware of what one can do and what one can’t – or shouldn’t – do, they can utilize them effectively and efficiently.

Miscellaneous Final Thoughts

And that’s where this article should have ended, but my research turned up various additional snippets and advice and factoids that I thought would be of too great a value to leave them out. These are the leftover bits that didn’t fit into the prior discussions – and that makes this section an epilogue, a literary construct that is the polar opposite of a prolog, but that serves exactly the same purpose.

• The best time to write a prolog is after you’ve finished writing the main narrative and find that you have essential information left over – but not so much such information that you can turn it into an entirely separate novel or adventure.
   
• If you absolutely must have a prolog, make sure to use it to generate excitement and interest in the main plot. This is even more important than using it to generate excitement and interest in the prolog, though that should be a secondary objective. Prologs should never put the readers/players to sleep.
   
• The second-best time to write a prolog with the intent of throwing it away is before you start writing anything else. If you adopt this approach, you must identify the blocks of information contained within the prolog as you write it, then actively seek to incorporate delivery systems for those revelations within the main text, crossing out the now-redundant content from the prolog as they do so. Note that it is extremely unsatisfying to most players to have an NPC written in for no other purpose than delivering certain information and for them to be immediately written out after they’ve delivered it. Find a better solution.

  For example, you could write the character out before they deliver the critical information: NPC shows up, badly wounded; before the PCs can make a friend-or-foe assessment, he croaks out the words “must warn… must warn…” and then dies. Searching the body for clues to this mysterious warning, they find a crystal with the key information embedded within it; they have to adapt a scanning electron microscope into a crystal reader, but if they are clever enough to do so, they can retrieve the research that sent this stranger to sound a warning and that got him killed. – Notice that this requires the PCs to do the work, rather than handing them the answers on a silver platter. Of course, most fantasy campaigns don’t have scanning electron microscopes and gadgeteers to fiddle with them; you will need some equivalent data retrieval mechanism.

  Alternatively, you could make the assumption that from the time he delivers his background-data info-dump, the character will stick around to assist the PCs, and model the antagonists accordingly.

  Or you could arrange things so that the PCs send the NPC on a mission, effectively having them write him out for you – though players are contrary creatures and might choose some alternative course of action, so this isn’t all that reliable a choice to make.
   

• Just because it gives players/characters/readers information that they don’t have, that doesn’t make a prolog necessary; there must be at least one pathway through the story/adventure of reasonable probability that defines that information as essential. In other words, the necessity of a prolog derives directly from the necessity of the information being conveyed.
   
• But, if a prologue gives a player information that they otherwise wouldn’t have, you are trusting them to keep player knowledge from influencing character actions and decisions. You know your players better than anyone else – if you trust them to do so, more power to you. If you don’t know them, don’t trust them with a prolog.
   
• Prologues are best served with a dangling plot thread that will be taken up and woven into the main thread of the adventure at a later point but on the same day as the prolog was delivered.
   
• Rules, literary or otherwise, exist for a reason. Don’t break them lightly.
   
• …but, if you have a good reason to do so, break as many rules as you have to, in the service of the number one rule, which was phrased by Wang Chung thusly: “Everybody Have Fun Tonight”. If you live by that one, almost anything can be forgiven.

In closing, let me wish CM’s readers – every one of you, you know who you are – a safe, prosperous, and Happy New Year! Next time, in part 2, the Big List of Adventure Beginning Points….

I have a character to offer for your next D&D / fantasy game. His is a story of hope, and desperation – but mostly, hope.

Introducing Solyn

Solyn was nobody important, raised in the human community of Rospike. He tried his best to fit in, there, but never seemed quite on the same page as the townspeople, who he found to be rude and crude. Certainly, there were locals who did not fit this characterization, but they moved in different social circles to Solyn.

Rospike was part of the domain of Duke Revin, who was niggardly and hard-nosed in most respects but capable of occasional turns of kindness, and scrupulously fair within the strict confines of tradition, protocol, and law.

One of those acts of generosity involved giving all children within his domain a decent educational foundation, though – to be fair – this act of generosity was not entirely without the taint of self-interest. The teachers that he employed acted as scouts, identifying students with natural talents of value to the Duke.

But Solyn was nothing special, and remained unimportant.

Solyn’s Fascination

Solyn’s life was forever changed by Zuylick, the teacher that the Duke dispatched to Rospike. From the day that Zuylick mentioned Elves, Solyn knew that he had found his life’s passion. They were elegant, and educated, and wise; poetic and musical and artistic; yet passionate and – if anything – closer to nature than any human not taken into the secretive society of Druids. They were everything that Solyn loved, and nothing that he hated.

From that day forward, Solyn sought out all he could learn of Elves, and despite his being a mediocre student at best, learned the beginnings of their language. But Rospike was a long way from the Elven Mountains, and other students learned Elvish more fluently than he could ever hope to do. Solyn was still unimportant.

In time, his education was complete, and Solyn became a farmer, handyman, and dog’s body within the local community. Mediocre at many things, expert in none – but he earned enough to survive, and even to diligently save every copper coin that he could get his hands on, for he had conceived an audacious plan: he would earn enough, save enough, that he could buy freedom from Duke Revin, and resettle in the Elven Lands, where he would persuade one of these paragons of virtue to wife, and they would live happily ever after.

As plans go, this was not entirely impractical, an ambition well within his limited abilities. And, in due course, he had enough saved that he was able to barter with the Duke for release from his obligations to crown and country, though it left him near-destitute.

Solyn’s Quest

Solyn set out for the Elvenlands full of hope and boyish romantic dreams, dreams that with every step seemed to grow more tangible, more real. As he traveled, he traded his services for food and lodgings, eventually reaching the border in roughly the same state as that in which he had departed.

He was welcomed with open arms by the Elvish community, and though nothing he could do was ever quite up to their standards, his earnest praise of all things Elvish brought him forgiveness and welcome – for a while.

He even found stable employment teaching children within the Elven Lands about humans, and to speak the Common Tongue of Man, and received the occasional commission to translate documents or sales agreements into common, because trade with Humans was becoming more and more common.

He even caught the eye of an Elvish Maiden of no great importance named Aelissa, and worshiped the ground she walked upon. In his eyes, she could do no wrong, and was everything that he had dreamed a wife could be, and – in the fullness of time – she presented him with a daughter, who the couple named Thien, from the Elvish word for Twilight – half one thing, and half another.

For a while, the fairy-tale seemed to have come true, and Solyn was far more than merely content. He let go of the last ties to his homeland save those of birth, which brought in the bread, milk, and honey upon which his family survived. But life is no fairy tale, and things were about to take a turn for the worse.

Solyn’s Downfall

Little by little, times turned hard. Unseasonably cold winters and dry summers turned into drought. Short-sighted and greedy merchants soured relations between Elves and Men, and the commissions dried up, and no-one was interested in teaching Elven children about Humans. The praise which Solyn heaped on everything Elvish began to sound hollow and condescending, because he was equally lavish regardless of the standard of achievement – from the Elvish perspective. Incursions into the Elvenlands by the neighboring wilder races, driven by hunger, increased the insularity of Elven society while further restricting food supplies.

Prejudice began to arise against the few Half-bloods who had been born, like Thien. The Elves began to view Half-bloods as ‘contaminated with human fragility’ – referring as much to their morality as to their physical, mental, and social capacities. Humans held a similar attitude but to them it was loyalty and honor and flexibility that had been compromised with Elvish airs and stiff-necked unwilling to compromise.

When Thien fell ill, subjected to one of those human frailties that the more rabidly xenophobic, Solyn was forced to take her to an Elven Cleric who at first refused treatment, and then demanded an almost-impossible price for bestowing the Grace of his deity upon the child, and times grew harder still for Solyn.

No longer made to feel welcome or wanted by his neighbors, he reached out to the one group with which he could still claim affiliation, however strained and remote – the Duchy of Revin. But, in the meantime, the old Duke had passed away, and his son – a hothead who was failing in every way to live up to the standards set by his forebears – issued a harsh penalty for what he considered the “personal betrayal of all humankind” by Solyn and others like him: they could return, but only if they abandoned all pretense of Elvishness and spoke out against the “Perfidy of the Elves”. Certainly, this would mean Solyn abandoning the wife and child that he treasured above all else, and more, the denigration of their memory.

What’s more, if he were to leave the Elvenlands, he would be adjudged a criminal for abandoning his family and never permitted to return for them.

His only hope was to somehow raise enough money that he could buy a welcome in some other Noble’s domain for both himself and his family, but with work becoming scarce and his resources already depleted, this seemed a forlorn hope. He could only beg for the charity of others and make increasingly desperate appeals and wildly optimistic and fruitless plans.

Depression and cynicism set in, and he took his frustration out on many who might have helped, because the offered aid did not further the latest wild scheme for escaping the plight in which he found himself. His reputation began to suffer, as a result. With the failure of ambitious plan after ambitious plan, humility was slowly ground into him, but in many cases, it was too late; both Races are experts at holding a grudge, and the “desperate orphan of circumstance in a distant realm” had long been a staple of con artists in both Realms.

Contact

It is at this time, and in this state, that the party encounter Solyn and his family. While grateful for the smallest concession or assistance, he always needs more, and his desperation often leads his gratitude to be short-lived. His pride, though wounded deeply, is nevertheless prone to flare up at odd times, making him seem short-tempered to any who linger long enough to offer assistance.

This is a character with no good choices left for them to make – only less-bad ones. And that makes him desperate enough to make mistakes. He will take every setback personally, and lash out, and fall prey to wild conspiracy theories when things don’t pan out, no matter how inevitable that outcome might be. These things, in turn, only fuel his desperation – a vicious cycle.

There are also those who are prone to attack any who have dealings with him, either out of prejudice against his Elven wife and half-blood daughter, or who assume that he is just another con-man and any who take up his cause are soft-headed and gullible.

Because of the desperation and resulting inclination to clutch at straws, Solyn can be encountered almost anywhere, in almost any circumstance – so long as that focal need remains unfulfilled and unfulfillable.

The PCs should not be expected or permitted to solve Solyn’s problems, which have all been made worse by his own mistakes, something that he will admit, but which he has difficulty taking responsibility for. He knows enough obscure lore, and is better than most at translating it into a form that others can understand, that he is not without value as a contact, but that value always comes with a price. That makes him a character who may be helpful, and whose qualities make him both admirable and yet – at times – uncomfortable to be around. He is a difficult friend to have, at best.

All of which makes him a very interesting character to interact with, in-game, and a compelling persona with a fascinating – and heartbreaking – story to tell, if the party will only listen.

The Reality

Some people may have recognized the above as a somewhat-romanticized and heavily-fictionalized recasting of a real-life person’s story, warts and all (perhaps, to appease the doubters, I should have written “alleged” story).

I have written a couple of times in the past about the personal crisis that has enveloped R. A. Whipple – and been attacked, and threatened, for doing so. One person even alleged that I was the “con-man” responsible and threatened to report me to the authorities.

In response to any such allegations this time around, let me simply say that if it’s a Con, it’s the most inept one imaginable, based on the results to date. The goals set for various fundraising campaigns have been modest, even overly so, but not one of them has come close to achieving those targets.

I first appealed on Richard’s behalf with a sidebar in the March 2016 article, “Boogie to the tune of the hidden Mastermind in your ranks“, and gave a much fuller description of the situation as the final item in a post from later that year, “Periodic Goodie Roundup October 2016“.

In a nutshell, he relocated to Poland because there was a lot of work for English speakers and because the old-world values appealed to him; he married and had a daughter; his job vanished in a recession, his work visa ran out, food became scarce and less wholesome, his daughter became sick as a result, and he became desperate to try and raise enough money to relocate his entire family back to his Canadian homeland. Well, that goal didn’t happen, so he made a second attempt to bootstrap his situation by writing a book – one that would have appealed only to a few readers in specific fields, but that drew heavily on his expertise and education, and that required extensive research.

That plan, therefore, also failed, and now – three years down the track – Richard’s own physical and mental health has him facing the prospect of leaving his wife and daughter and re-entering Canada on his own to seek medical treatment (all along, the Canadian Embassy has been willing to assist him but not the rest of his family. They might want to do more, but rules and regulations wouldn’t let them even if that’s the case).

If RA does return to Canada, he will effectively be homeless – with no job in prospect and no current credentials to obtain one, the possibility is vanishingly small that he will ever be reunited with his family. And with him in such a position, they would not be permitted to Emigrate in any event.

No-one likes to think about a family abandoned to their fate. It’s certainly not something that RA wants for his family. But he’s being left with little choice.

That’s his story, and though you may have doubts about it’s veracity, I am convinced. First, because I’ve been in contact with RA for longer than this situation has existed – he was the first person to post a comment here at Campaign Mastery – and second because, as I said, if it is a hoax it’s a singularly unsuccessful one. I can’t imagine any criminal sticking with such a plan whose returns were so slight – they would literally get more reward begging on the street.

It might seem too little, too late, but there is still time to help out. Even a couple of dollars, multiplied a few hundred-fold, would make an enormous difference.

I know that there are always worthy causes and people in need; here in Australia, for example, an unprecedented bushfire season has already cost several lives and resulted in the destruction of more than 700 homes, including one entire small town that was virtually wiped out overnight. That’s 700 now-homeless families who won’t be enjoying Christmas this year, no matter how much assistance they might get to rebuild their lives.

But Richard deserves a little compassion too, especially at this time of year. I will be giving what little I can to both causes. It won’t be much. Can you do the same – give something to a worthy cause, and a little on the side to help Richard?

That’s all anyone could ask.

You can donate to help Richard’s cause at A New Life in Canada for Wysoka (Wysoka is the name of Richard’s daughter), where you can read other people’s accounts of the family and the situation. And remember the gofundme guarantee, “If something isn’t right, we will refund your donation”, for those who still have doubts.

I hope everyone reading this has a safe and happy Christmas. And wouldn’t it be nice if we could make someone else’s Christmas-time that way, too?

I was watching a movie that’s an old favorite, National Treasure (now available with its sequel as a blue-ray double-feature at Amazon, click on the link – limited copies available), prompted by a combination of availability and renewed speculation concerning a third movie in the series.

It’s not as though the first two were flops, after all – the first grossed $347 million world-wide off a $100 million budget, and the sequel brought in $457 million. Rumors persist that a sequel was actually filmed, at least in part, and offer up various stories ranging from plausible to wildly improbable for the failure of part 3 to manifest. Do a google search for “National Treasure 3” and you’ll discover a wealth of articles and blog posts and websites and youTube videos exploring the subject.

The truth of the matter seems to be that a script was almost in filmable form, but big-ticket acquisitions like the Marvel and Star Wars franchises, plus the ever-growing Pixar catalog, plus their own success stories like the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise, have all combined to do a super-sopper on available oxygen for projects like National Treasure 3 – and that the changing demographic appeal of the star, Nicholas Cage, makes such a project more of a risk than it might initially seem. That’s the word according to Jon Tuteltaub, the director of the fist two movies, at least according to collider.com in the article “Here’s Why ‘National Treasure 3’ Hasn’t Happened Yet“, in one of those many articles that I alluded to in the preceding paragraph.

So, anyway, I was watching the sequence in which the pipe turns out to be the first clue in the trail leading (ultimately) to the treasure, and Cage’s character describes it as a “map”. That touched off a vivid recollection of the map that features in the second and third Pirates Of The Caribbean movies… and that got me to thinking of the many different formats that a map might take. When the title of the possible article came to me, it’s instant appeal made this article a dead certainty.

Too often, in fantasy games, players are presented with a “treasure map” that looks just like a traditional map – with an “X” marking the spot. There are a handful of variations, but that’s it. There’s no real excuse for this lack of creativity. So, here are twenty strange and fantastic forms a map might take…

1. Traditional Slices

This map was made by someone fascinated by puzzles. It looks like a traditional paper map, but to read it correctly, you need to cut it up along the right lines, put the resulting strips in the right order, and then slide them along the cuts to get everything to line up.

2. Multiple False Trails

This map also looks like a traditional map, but it shows multiple routes to the goal, whatever it might be. The problem is that all of these (bar one, if you’re feeling generous) lead to traps and hostile forces. (If you aren’t feeling so generous, you need to employ a combination of the false clues to follow the “true path” – which is easy, if you were the one who made the map, and so understand it. For example, clue #1 on path #1 might be a distinctively forked tree. Clue #1 on path #2 might be a mountain of a particular shape. Clue #1 on path #3 might be a famous statue. So, if you head for the statue, there might come a moment en route when you reach a point where the mountains in the distance are framed by the branches of a cactus that perfectly matches the shape of the forked tree. If you walk in that direction, there will come a moment when the shape of the mountains will exactly match the depiction on path #2. In effect, you are homogenizing all three paths to discern a fourth – and if you go just a few feet off-course, you’ll miss the vital next clue.

3. Sculpture on a door

You have a door, big, heavy and sturdy, with steel panels and steel bands holding them in place. And, on one side of it is a relief sculpture of a remote area as it was long ago when the door was forged. And if you examine this “map” (which is really inconvenient to take with you anywhere) very closely, you might find notations of various sites of interest to the maker here and there.

4. A narrative

Why put down in images what you can put into fanciful language? This permits the full armory of language to be unleashed on concealing the important information. What’s more, since the person preparing this guideline is obviously intent on hiding the true path from anyone who shouldn’t have possession of it, he, she, or it can even manufacture “more obvious” solutions to the various clues and emplace them at the appropriate points on the path – misdirection, leading to traps. If he’s feeling especially nasty, it might even lead the unwary to a fake dungeon full of traps and hostiles – but very little reward. Party after party may have braved it in hopes of finding the Lost Treasure, which “must” be hidden there somewhere…

5. Woven into a tapestry

This is an old favorite. A tapestry with a number of seemingly narrative images depicting the life of the person creating the “map”, but each image contains a landmark or clue that gives a direction. Tying these images together are threads that don’t belong in a normal tapestry, running at an angle to the grain of the weave and died a dark color. These combine with a scale hidden at each landmark or in the images to denote a travel time along the indicated line to the next landmark.

6. Magically inserted beneath a masterwork

This requires the GM to have established a couple of famous artists – the equivalent of namedropping Rembrandt or Picasso, people whose names are even recognizable to the majority of laymen. So, when someone shows up at a tavern with one, that they claim had a map inserted into the under-paints magically, the players are faced with the dilemma of destroying a priceless artwork to recover the map underneath – if it truly exists at all. Who would take the chance? This is the sort of puzzle that nags at some players until they solve it. How do you get the map out from underneath the paint without destroying the painting?

7. The fabulous greenhouse

The names (in various languages) and properties of the plants growing in a fabulous greenhouse form the clues that lead to the hidden wealth of the greenhouse owner.

8. The Alchemist’s formula

Once there was an incredibly famous alchemist, who purportedly solved the problem of turning base metal (iron) into gold. The problem with his solution is that it took decades if not centuries to complete this transformation. The alchemist was tortured to death for his secret, but the formula that he gave up on his deathbed didn’t work, even though truth droughts had been forcibly administered beforehand. Ever since, spurious “formulas” supposedly containing the true process of this alchemist have been sold to the gullible. So, when someone joins the PCs in a tavern and seeks to hire them to find the hidden and long-lost laboratory of the alchemist, they are likely to be interested. Their potential patron has deduced that the alchemist’s formula, given on his death-bed, was truthful, after a fashion – it was actually disguised directions to that laboratory, where the formula could be found. A formula that has now had ample time to turn lots of iron objects into soft, yellow gold…

Problem #1: obtaining a true copy of the deathbed formula

Problem #2: figuring out how to translate it into the clues

Problem #3: following those clues through terrain and territory that is now a lot more dangerous

Problem #4: an alchemist’s laboratory that’s stood abandoned for centuries – who knows what might lurk inside?

The GM will need answers to these questions before the players ask them, of course. Here are some suggestions: eliminate every step in the formula that refers to a Base. this breaks the “formula” into a number of smaller processes, each of which yields a commonly-known substance. That substance’s common name is the clue. So the first clue might be “Ice”, the second might be “Sulfur”, the third might be “Ash”, and so on. Once you have these translated clues, it should be a simple matter for the GM to work up a series of puzzles revolving around the theme of the clue.

9. Pi In Error

A scroll contains a series of riddles, surmounted by some geometry (think ancient Greek, or do an image search for “geometry greek calculation pi” to find an image like this one) showing how to derive the value of pi. The riddles appear to have been written over the top of an existing page of work that wasn’t bleached out properly. The tenth line of the riddles states (in appropriate flowery language) that this is the path to a treasure – the GM should provide some appropriate backstory to explain why it’s been hidden). This scroll was sent as “payment” of the debt, whatever it was, but no-one’s been able to penetrate the mystery.

Extremely close examination of the scroll by a character who knows math will reveal an error in the calculation of pi. Prior to this point, the GM should be careful to refer to it only by it’s name or as “3.14 etc”. The value shown is 3.14592768 – which is the sequence that the riddles have to be solved in, in order to follow the trail to the treasure.

10. A grain of rice

Take a map of a small region, wrap it around a roughly spherical shape, then carve a grain of rice to match…

11. Bonus: The physical polympsat

This is another alchemy-themed puzzle. Physically so large as to be quite immobile, it consists of a model of a maze, with each corner and intersection marked with a landmark or clue. The problem is that simply solving the maze, and noting the clues that you have to pass over in doing so, gets you nowhere.

• Although the wooden channels all look the same, the woods have undergone different alchemic preparations. Some are slightly sticky or tacky, such that a dusting of any sort of powder will reveal a line of connected clues running right through physical walls and barriers (the “earth” clue).
• Pouring water down a waterfall sculpted in the center of the puzzle (one of the more noticeable “clues”) results in water running down some parts of the puzzle and not others, connecting more clues both before and after the waterfall. Significantly, either the first or the last of these (depending on which way you count them) is the last clue of the “earth” line.
• Similarly, filling some small barrels labeled “XXXX” with a flammable spirit results in a stream of leaking alcohol running past a candle that’s almost burned down to a nub, setting it alight IF the candle has been lit. This connects another three or four clues (the “fire” line).
• If you solve these clues and follow the trail, you will eventually find your way to a full-sized version of the maze – one full of traps and monsters. Only by following the solution that can be determined by memorizing the original “miniature” version (the “air path”) can you get through relatively safely to the hidden entrance to the treasure cache.

12. Bonus: The Window Of Truth

In the middle of the room, the PCs find a poorly-made glass window in a freestanding frame. Why it’s there, they have no idea. It seems out of place. If someone attempts to destroy it (out of general pugnaciousness or frustration) they will find that the strange display is protected by walls of force. (PCs might get the idea that it’s a puzzle designed to do nothing more than pin them down long enough for wandering monsters or patrols to discover them).

In reality, the glass is exquisitely made; it looks crude because it blends several different types of glass into the one pane. These react differently to different lighting conditions – firelight, moonlight, daylight, the light of burning brandy (very blueish), and so on. Each reveals one page of clues / directions to the treasure. They still have to be read in the right order.

This idea was inspired by the Hobbit – not the movies, the original book.

Metagaming The Map

As this small selection shows, exotic maps can be both fascinating and dangerous. None of them should be solvable with a simple die roll – you have to ask the right questions. If you do so, a die roll might be required to get the answer.

You are challenging the players, not just their characters. That means that culturally-inappropriate riddles are perfectly fine, an abstracted representation of the riddle actually posed to the NPCs.

What’s more, that means that you should pitch the difficulty levels at an appropriate standard for the players, not the PCs.

Metagaming The Map II

The nature of the map should function as a preview to what to expect at journey’s end. That’s because it’s a window into the mind of the person responsible for its creation (note that I didn’t say “the maker” – many would have employed skilled artisans to craft their maps, artisans who could then have “accidents” if they posed a security risk. If the person to whom the goodies belonged didn’t have the necessary skills, of course.

That means integrating the legend of the “creator” of a map into the campaign backstory, making sure that it’s nicely consistent with the profile that can be derived from the map they caused to be created, and making sure that the nature of the challenges and rewards at the end of the quest are also appropriate to the expressed personality.

I remember once being told about another GM’s dungeon and map. It was written in a form of invisible ink that could be made visible at human body temperatures, but would fade quickly in the open air, and would burn energetically if heated very far beyond this point – something the PCs discovered when they incinerated one corner of the document. The party rogue took no chances, keeping the folded map inside his jacket and top-shirt at all times except for the brief moments when it was being examined. The dungeon to which it led was brimming with death-traps, like 10′ pits that filled with acid when someone fell into them, or a Medusa in a hall of Mirrors. Throughout the exploration of the dungeon, the rogue’s CON kept dropping, a point here, a point there. I forget which race the rogue was, but the dungeon had been constructed by a mortal enemy of that race, and it was to this animosity, expressed in some sort of evil magic over the whole place, that the party attributed the rogue’s steady decline. Eventually, they were forced to retreat and rest up; the next day, the Rogue died of accumulated CON loss. Only after he was safely buried and the rest of the party departed did the GM tell him that the body-heat activated map had been coated in slow-acting contact poison; it was one last death-trap. At the next game session, it was all the player of the former rogue could do to stay expressionless when the paladin announced that he was hiding the map under his armor and silken shirt…

These little touches serve as multipliers to both the credibility and memorability of your creations. They foster the impression that your campaign is part of you, and vice-versa – that it is truly yours, unique to you. The cumulative originality displayed accumulates until it becomes impossible to conceive of that campaign not being run by you. It becomes a signature, a standard against which all others will be judged.

Which means that these dozen ideas are just starting points; integrating them into your campaign is up to you, because you won’t do it in exactly the way I would.

With this post, I am starting to focus on shorter items to ensure that I can squeeze them into the holiday period. At least that’s the plan – you’ve no doubt heard me say similar things before…

Have you ever heard of the “Strange Face In The Mirror” illusion? Or the Troxler effect? All right, I see the person at the back of the hall with their hands raised, and you up in the gallery. Anyone else? Didn’t think so.

There’s a reason why both these terms should be included in every GM’s vocabulary.

The Strange-Face-In-The-Mirror Illusion

This phenomenon was discovered in 2010, and first reported in the journal Perception, by Italian psychologist Giovanni Caputo.

In a nutshell, if you stare at your reflection in a large mirror in a dimly lit room, you will start to hallucinate – usually in less than a minute.

“At the end of a 10 min session of mirror gazing, the participant was asked to write what he or she saw in the mirror. The descriptions differed greatly across individuals and included:

(a) huge deformations of one’s own face (reported by 66% of the fifty participants);

(b) a parent’s face with traits changed (18%), of whom 8% were still alive and 10% were deceased;

(c) an unknown person (28%);

(d) an archetypal face, such as that of an old woman, a child, or a portrait of an ancestor (28%);

(e) an animal face such as that of a cat, pig, or lion (18%);

(f) fantastical and monstrous beings (48%).”

Note that these effects were not static, but continued to morph and change, segueing from one form of the illusion into another. Unsurprisingly, these illusions had an emotional impact on the viewers.

“The participants reported that apparition of new faces in the mirror caused sensations of otherness when the new face appeared to be that of another, unknown person or strange ‘other’ looking at him/her from within or beyond the mirror.

All fifty participants experienced some form of this dissociative identity effect, at least for some apparition of strange faces and often reported strong emotional responses in these instances.

For example, some observers felt that the ‘other’ watched them with an enigmatic expression – situation that they found astonishing. Some participants saw a malign expression on the ‘other’ face and became anxious. Other participants felt that the ‘other’ was smiling or cheerful, and experienced positive emotions in response.

The apparition of deceased parents or of archetypal portraits produced feelings of silent query.

Apparition of monstrous beings produced fear or disturbance.

Dynamic deformations of new faces (like pulsations or shrinking, smiling or grinding) produced an overall sense of inquietude for things out of control.”

This was an entirely new class of “visual illusion”, one that was both dynamic (changing) and entirely within the mind of the beholder. One respondent reported his eye looked away and then looked back at him. At another point in the experience, that respondent described the perception of something black slithering across the floor behind him.

Early speculation was that the brain had a short-cut for facial recognition, one that was responsible for the phenomenon of seeing faces in clouds, trees, or even in two dots and a line.

This mental process is always looking for faces to get a “head start’ on identifying those it knows. This might also explain the “lookalike” phenomenon, in which physical resemblances between two individuals are overemphasized to the point where we think they look alike despite the presence of more numerous points of differentiation. It also seems likely that some features are more prominently emphasized in this process, and hence more important to recognition of an individual, than others.

Caputo suggested that the process might be more unstable than previously thought, prone to misinterpret fluctuations i n the stability of edges, shading, and outlines into a determination of “someone else” by the recognition process.

Later analysts have suggested that the Troxler Effect may be involved, interfering in the normal process of recognition.

Whenever I read or write about this phenomenon, I keep flashing back to the aphorism, “The Eyes Are The Window To The Soul”. I can just see people trying to get a glimpse of their “true nature” or “inner spirit” in the mirror by staring fixedly at their reflection for long periods of time.

This leads me to wonder just how many times and in how many places, both before and after it was identified, this illusion has entered our folklore.

One obvious case of it doing so is the legend of “Bloody Mary” which claims that her image will appear in a mirror if you stare into it while chanting her name. (This in turn suggests connections to the reported phenomenon of “Directed Dreaming, better known as Lucid Dreaming, but that’s getting off-topic.)

I have to wonder how many spiritualists and “occult investigators” stumbled over it? Is this responsible for the entire concept of Possession? How much has it played into our concepts of Angels and Demons?

Another practice that Wikipedia has connected to the Illusion is the medieval practice of Scrying.

Food for thought, indeed. But probably too heavily into “realism” for use in most RPG campaigns, which have as a premise (stated or otherwise) that the fantastic is real.

The Troxler Effect

Swiss physician Ignaz Paul Vital Troxler first identified the effect that bears his name in 1804. Also known as Troxler’s fading or Troxler fading, it’s a category of optical illusion in which concentration on one point for even a short period of time results in even relatively nearby unchanging stimuli being “subtracted” from the brain’s awareness or perceptions.

The Troxler effect has been used to explain the “Lilac Chaser” illusion. The example below shows a cross in the center of a series of lilac dots, which are taken away one at a time and then replaced, as though something “invisible” were rotating around the cross and masking one dot at a time.

• If you focus on one of the lilac dots (for some reason I naturally pick one in the lower left, but it should make no difference) then the empty space where a lilac dot has been “masked” will be filled in by the brain with a pale green dot of the same size, that the brain has manufactured.
• If you focus on the sequence of vanishing dots, you might not even see the cross.
• If you focus on the cross, the lilac dots will reportedly vanish.

In a nutshell, because you have processed the image, and decided not to focus on a particular detail, the brain removes it so that you can focus more of your attention on the point that does have your attention.

If you combine these two, you can have one part of the brain censoring what it considers unimportant while another manufactures hallucinations to fill the void. And that brings me to…

Standing Watch

It’s a standard precaution – if in a potentially dangerous location, the characters will stand watch in shifts, so that someone is armed and at the ready should the camp be attacked (or something dangerous approach).

The military protocol for standing watch is to have two men on watch, at a minimum, if at all possible. Why? Because one man, on his own, can start to see things that aren’t there, or can fall asleep, leaving the camp unprotected. And, if you are relying on that man to awaken the next to stand his watch, then you have an obvious problem.

Despite this, the usual RPG Practice is for a single PC to be on watch. There are two conditions under which that watch can take place: well-lit or poorly lit.

“Well-lit” avoids the problems stemming from the phenomena described earlier – but even a glance in the direction of the fire is enough to ruin night vision, as shown by Mythbusters in the season 7 “Pirate Special”. In the “Eye Patch” segment, they tested the theory that Pirates wore eye-patches to preserve night vision in one eye. Wikipedia describes the results thus:

“This myth works under the assumption that the eye covered with the eye-patch is already accustomed to low-light conditions, while the other eye must take time to become accustomed. The Mythbusters were sent into a pirate-themed obstacle course (which was dark, and Adam and Jamie had not seen the course in light, let alone the layout) with light-accustomed eyes and were told to complete certain objectives. Their movements were hampered by the darkness, and it took them five minutes to finish. When they went back in with an eye that had been covered for thirty minutes, the Mythbusters were able to complete the test in a fraction of the time. As a control test, the Mythbusters then went back into the same exact room with light-accustomed eyes and ran into the same difficulty as the first test. The myth was deemed plausible rather than confirmed because there is no recorded historical precedent for this myth.”

According to Dr Christopher S. Baird, writing for West Texas A&M University (abbreviated WT by the university themselves), we start acquiring night vision after only ten minutes, have almost fully-adapted after about 20 minutes, but can need several hours for night-time sensitivity to reach its peak, as shown by the following diagram:

Dr Baird also provides some caveats regarding the diagram: “Note that this plot is only representative of the general trends. The actual curve varies from person to person, from one spot on the eye to the next, and from one day to the next.”

This more or less makes a watchman useless in a well-lit camp – though the fire might drive animal assailants away, it will simply advertise the camp’s location to anyone else. That means that the optimum is probably a ‘cold camp’, i.e. no fire – despite the increased risks. But that brings these phenomena right back into play.

Every watch in an RPG should contain either incidents where the watcher is seeing things that aren’t there (and potentially raising alerts over them) or ignoring things (that might actually be there) because he thinks he is seeing things!

In a Fantasy Game / Firelight environment

I find that I’ve probably stolen most of what I had to say in this section in the material above. In fact, I have only one observation to discuss.

The nature of the light source involved might be a pertinent factor in triggering the illusion, according to one line of thought. Because natural light from campfires and candles and the like are unstable, flickering, dancing this way and that, this would force the brain to continually reappraise it’s surroundings, overcoming the Illusions.

Alternatively, you could argue that by making the environment even “fuzzier” in terms of definition, such sources of illumination would amplify the tendency.

In the absence of anything more than the logical analysis in the above two paragraphs, this is obviously the referee’s call.

But if I were to make that decision, I know which way I would immediately vote: bring on the Hallucinations!! You might feel differently, though.

In a Modern environment

The invention of the electric light bulb, which doesn’t rely on an oxidation chain-reaction to produce illumination, changes everything. Early bulbs were undoubtedly a LOT dimmer than those we have taken for granted throughout my lifetime – extensive research turned up Are Edison Bulbs Bright Enough? at “1000 bulbs”, an internet-based lighting company which uses a dedicated blog to discuss all matters lighting-related both as a way of giving back to the community and of marketing their products. They state that antique bulbs were typically half as bright for a given wattage as more recent tungsten-filament bulbs – and, presumably, were available only in lower-wattage models than the more modern range, since there is a relationship between wattage and lifespan, and lifespan was a primary challenge back in the early days of commercialized electrical lighting. What’s more, the light is more orange than modern bulbs, which is also perceived as being dimmer.

So, if the typical bulb was 40W, the light produced was probably on the order of only 15-20W by modern standards. A 20-Watt bulb would not have been much brighter than a handheld battery torch from the 1980s – never mind the improvements in technology since.

That means that the first half of the twentieth century was probably just as prone to experiencing the “Strange Face In The Mirror” just through ordinary usage, and the vulnerabilities to those standing watch remain valid.

But even in the modern day, it remains true that illumination only advertises your position to potential adversaries. Better a cold camp and low-light vision enhancements!

Which means being just as prone to seeing things that aren’t there….

A story of numbers

The obvious question is, why don’t RPG parties have more than one person standing watch at a time?

The equally-obvious answer is that they don’t have enough members to make it practical.

If watches are 4 hours long, a party of three would be resting for a full twelve hours. If they are two hours long, you’re still talking about twelve hours – but you’re interrupting two members sleep twice a night, and one, once. Minimum. And you start running into the problem of alert time, also known as Attention Span.

Simply put, the human organism isn’t designed to focus intently on something for more than about 20-25 minutes. Over that period of time, the error rate – the frequency of making mistakes related to the task being focused on – rises steadily. Other researchers suggest an alert time of 45-50 minutes, and still others of 90-100 minutes – it largely depends on the tolerance for errors involved in the task.

Several researchers have also found that strategic, short, breaks can “reset” the clock and significantly boost productivity. It doesn’t matter whether you’re writing something (like this article) or studying for an exam, the principle holds. What’s more, simply switching attention to a somewhat different task can be at least partially effective – in writing this article, for example, there were a lot of five-minute breaks spent researching this topic or that, like the information provided in the last couple of paragraphs.

It’s also known that sleep deprivation and a number of psychological conditions both impair alert time directly and increase the tendency to both make mistakes and for the attention to drift off. Other factors – environmental and internal – can also have a negative impact. I have long maintained that masking ‘random environmental distractions’ with known content such as music that is familiar to the listener can mitigate some of these effects.

These subjects have been matters of active investigation by a number of agencies since 1943 due to the impact on the public safety of commercial aviation deriving from inattention and pilot error. Ergonomics is now considered a sub-field of Human Factors by many.

Balancing the issue of sustaining alert levels over a span of time is the issue of the quality of interrupted sleep. I wrote extensively about sleep for GMs in Tourism in Sleepland: Sleep management for GMs & other creative people back in 2014. Be warned, it’s a long article even by Campaign Mastery standards!

Applying that information to this situation, 90 minutes of sound sleep plus X minutes to actually fall asleep is probably the basic multiple. For multiple deep-sleep phases in succession, we’re again talking 90 minutes at a stretch. In hours: 1.5, 3, 4.5, 6, 7.5, 9 – all plus that “X” at the top and after each interruption. It’s normal to allow 30 minutes for “X”, giving the standard 8-hour sleep recommendation.

This defines the optimum time for a person to be on-watch: 90 minutes, plus 30 minutes in the case of the first watch of the evening.

How many party members do we need to give everyone enough sleep?

• Start with guard one: 2 hours of watch plus 8 hours of sleep. Total: 10 hours.
• Guard two gets 2 hours of sleep, then has a 90-minute watch, and then needs 6 hours more sleep, and another 30 minutes going-back-to-sleep time. Total = 10 hours.
• Guard three gets 3.5 hours sleep, then stands a 90-minute watch, and then needs 4.5 hours plus 30 minutes more sleep. Total = 10 hours.
• Guard four gets 5 hours sleep, stands a 90 minute watch, then sleeps for another 3 hours plus 30 minutes – a total of 10 hours.
• Guard five gets 6.5 hours sleep, stands a 90 minute watch, then sleeps for another hour-and-a-half plus 30 minutes – if he can. If I wake up after this much sleep, I find it hard to go back to sleep.
• Guard six gets eight hours sleep, and then stands a 90 minute watch. And probably then stands an extra 30 minutes, so that someone’s on watch for the entire 10 hours.

Six guards. If you don’t have six warm bodies to fill those slots, effectiveness is compromised. There are two choices of compromise: longer watch shifts, or multiple interruptions on any given night. The first is undoubtedly the simplest.

Notice that the total time spent with the party resting is defined as Watch plus 8 hours, in the very first line of the above analysis.

In theory, for example, three people would need watches that were twice as long – three hours long.

• Guard one: 3 hour watch plus 8 hours sleep = 11 hours.
• Guard two: 3 hrs sleep (inefficient resting) plus 3 hrs on watch plus 5 hours sleep plus 30 minutes = 11.5 hours. Right away, there’s a problem.
• Guard three: 6 hrs sleep (inefficient resting) plus 3 hrs on watch plus another 2 hours sleep plus 30 minutes = 11.5 hours again.
• no-one’s left to guard for the next 2 hours. The problem has just become critical.
• At the end of that 2 hours, Guard one wakes up – and finds himself standing watch for another half hour. And probably feeling disgruntled because he’s already done his shift.

All three party members are compromised – either their sleep patterns have been disrupted, leaving them feeling tired and irritable the next day, or they’ve had to stand an extra half-hour’s watch. And all three would be uncomfortably aware that for two hours that night (or perhaps that morning), the entire party was blissfully snoozing.

What this shows is that there’s a non-linear relationship between the number of guards and the length of their watches. It’s not as simple as doubling the length of watch to allow for half the number of people. I’ll show the right way to calculate the watch length, in a moment.

First, though, let’s think about the simplest solution to the problem of not having enough people to stand watch.

The simple solution: add more characters?

If you have a party of three PCs, and each recruits one henchman / apprentice / minion / hireling (whatever you want to define them as) who the party can trust,, that gives six people to stand watch. Problem solved.

It’s that “who can be trusted” that’s the rub. And that assumes that the PCs can trust each other.

Arranging a Watch-list

There are lots of ways of arranging a watch list. The Wikipedia page on Watchkeeping lists eight of them. But the focus there is on rotation from day to day; once you accept that principle, and the concept that watches are only to be kept while encamped, the content of the page becomes less relevant. Fortunately, there’s a simpler way.

The straightforward way

The length of a watch is determined by dividing the sleep period required, by the number of guards minus one.

Right away, this highlights the cause of the problem with the three-person example given earlier: eight hours divided by (3-1) gives a watch length of four hours, not three. So the first two people standing watch for only three hours each leaves the overall total two hours short – and the only reason guard number one was available to take that last half hour is because his sleep wasn’t interrupted, so he didn’t need that extra half-hour of rest.

Four-hour watches after a full day’s exertion are really too long. But the alternative – multiple watches of 2 hours length – is even more inefficient because there will be multiple thirty-minute go-back-to-sleep requirements.

Conclusion: three people aren’t enough to both maintain a watch and ensure that everyone gets a good night’s sleep.

Four people don’t work out very evenly – eight divided by 3 gives a watch length of 2 hrs 40 minutes, and means that two or three guards are again awoken at “bad points” in their sleep cycles. But if you accept that 7.5 hours is close enough for a substantial period of time, with the occasional sleep-in when you reach secure lodgings, 2.5 hour watches result. The sleep disruptions still occur for two people, but both first watch and last watch get uninterrupted sleep.

A simple rotation means guard one gets 1 good night, two bad nights, and another good night – but also means that he stands last watch one morning and then has to stand first watch that night, producing a very long day.

A sequence of “1, 3, 4, 2” avoids this problem and means that every second day, each party member gets an uninterrupted night’s rest.

Of course, if you multiply the length of a watch by the number of characters, you discover how much of the 24-hour day is consumed by camping. Some arrangements are more efficient than others – we’ve already shown that a 6-guard roster totals ten hours, and a 3-guard roster totals 12 hours. A 4-guard roster at 2 hrs 40 minutes totals 10 hours 40 minutes (not bad) and gives everyone 8 hours of sleep, or totals 10 hours if based on 7.5 hours’ sleep (about as good as it gets).

How much adventuring could you get done in that 40 minutes? It’s the equivalent of taking a reasonably leisurely lunch break, and a couple of extra 5-minute rest breaks along the way.

• A 9-guard roster gives shifts of an hour each, and a total time lost of 9 hours, and a full 8 hours rest.
• A 13-guard roster gives shifts of 40 minutes each, a full eight hours rest, and a total time of 8 hours 40 minutes lost.
• A 17-guard roster gives shifts of 30 minutes each, a full eight hours rest, and a total time lost out of the day of 8.5 hours. In effect, those extra four guards buy you a whole ten more minutes on the road – plus watch shifts that are close to optimal.

Of course, all these calculations assume that the changeover is instantaneous – which it isn’t. But there’s plenty of room in that “plus thirty” for the outgoing watch to relay anything important to the incoming watch.

It must also be noted that these are the minimum, with one person standing watch at a time; the optimum is actually two or three at a time, as noted earlier.

But this leaves roughly 13-15 hours of room for travel and adventure per day, right?

Oh, if only it were that simple.

Additional Tasks: Setting Up Camp

There are a whole lot of additional tasks involved in setting up camp, and in breaking camp. There are two ways to arrange these: assume that it’s enough for everyone to be awake, and hence no guard is needed, or assume that the party is in a dangerous location and guards should be posted whenever you aren’t in transit from A to B.

This choice is not up to the GM, it’s up to the PCs. But it is the GM’s responsibility to put the choice to them at least once, if not every time until they set a policy – a petard upon which the GM can hoist them, in other words.

The first case is simple – the calculations don’t change, and the extra time is simply added to the total.

The more paranoid approach is a bit trickier – you have to factor the additional time into both the resting time and the total time. So the calculations are now:

     guard shift length = (8 + Y) / (n – 1)

     total time used = ( shift length × n ) + Y

Both involve this new number “Y” – the amount of additional time spent setting up and breaking camp.

Before we can assess that, it’s necessary to think about the actual tasks that have to be performed. By my count, there are seven, possibly more:

1. clearing a site,
2. erecting Tents,
3. gathering firewood,
4. fetching water,
5. starting a fire,
6. cooking a meal for all,
7. digging a latrine.

To that list can be added

8. hunting
9. gathering wild produce

Lets Ignore those for a moment, and ponder the division of labor:

Assuming that everyone works to clear the site of flammables and burrs and stinging nettles and the like, the person who cooks the meal probably also starts the fire. That leaves the rest of the PCs to dig a latrine and gather enough wood to keep the fire burning for as long as is needed – which is how long exactly?

All night? Or just long enough to cook the meal and clean the dishes?

Right away, we’re again confronted with the Cold-camp vs Night Fire question.

Either way, Let’s assume two hours for that task – but it could be longer if in an environment without a lot of consumable resources, or less. If it’s too much less, however, you start to lose time in the “clearing the site” task. But, in any reasonable environment, 2 hours is probably a worst-case.

Tasks can be made easier by campsite selection. Instead of defensibility being the primary consideration, being close to a supply of fresh water should be dominant; defensibility should be a poor second. Not only does this provide a ready water supply, trees are often found along riverbanks if nowhere else – and trees mean fallen branches, i.e. wood.

How recently someone else camped in the vicinity (using up the available timber) is also a factor! You may have to go a mile or so up- or down-river to find a suitable campsite.

I did factor these thoughts into my suggestion that two hours is probably a worst-case scenario in a reasonable location.

The practical fact is that the cook can’t get started until the first load of wood arrives. In some of my campaigns, the players have made a point of setting the cook’s tent up for them so that they can get on with cooking the meal; the thought was that this maximized the efficiency of the overall process. But the truth probably is that the cook can clear the site for the fire while the others are setting up their tents, erect their own tent in a suitable location while the foragers are out, and be ready to start the evening meal when they begin to return. The other tasks involved can probably be completed while the meal is being cooked.

All of this needs daylight for maximum efficiency, though characters with special vision might be able to make do – or might not, it depends on how their special vision actually works.

The meal, on the other hand, can be consumed in twilight conditions or even pitch darkness (thanks to light from the fire). So that gives us a fixed point in time each time – sunset marks the time the meal (and the campsite) are supposed to be ready. Thirty minutes or so later, the campers should turn to and the first watch begins.

How much sleep? There’s that question, again.

No one can deny that combat is an intensive activity. But so is hunting, or simply walking a long distance in relatively insecure surroundings – and they are all insecure; in “civilized” parts, rogues, opportunists, and bandits may lurk anywhere, and in the wilds, monsters abound. The type of threat may be different, but the reality of the threat is unchanged.

So standing first watch comes at the end of a long day.

These estimates are very heavily influenced by the numbers. The larger the group, the larger the site needed for an encampment, and the deeper the latrine needs to be, and the more food will be required. On the other hand, many hands makes light work. Most of the tasks on the list can be considered proportional to the number of characters, and that means that the total encampment time remains unchanged at roughly 2.5 hours.

That stops being true roughly when we get to the Squad level of party size – twenty-something people to thirty – and changes again when we start talking about larger army units. But those are rarely relevant to the logistics of an adventuring party (the one exception: caravan duty).

Additional Tasks: Breaking Camp

There are also seven tasks involved in breaking camp.

1. Gather more firewood
2. Relighting the fire
3. More water
4. Cooking a meal for everyone
5. Putting the fire out
6. Packing the tents
7. Policing the campsite (includes filling the latrine)

It’s fairly rare for another session of gathering wild produce or hunting meat. More commonly, some will have been set aside from the night before to add to the morning meal.

In addition, there are two optional tasks that might be required:

8. Removing tracks
9. Navigational Fix

So, how long? The best sites for gathering firewood would have been noted the previous evening, so less searching will be required. Relighting the fire will also be easier if there are some embers from the night before. Obtaining more water will take about as long – and is still sensitive to the specifics of the campsite selected.

Cooking the meal will probably be quicker, due to the nature of the meal usually served. In my experience, packing the tents takes 1/2 to 1/3 as long as it does to erect them – and half of that is packing them neatly so that everything is ready for the next campsite. Policing the camp simply means cleaning up any litter – and that’s a much smaller problem in most fantasy campaigns. But there might be orange peels or something. Basically, you don’t want to attract predators to this campsite because you might want to use it again at some future time.

So far, then, we’re probably talking about an hour, plus time to actually eat the meal.

But there are three tasks to be considered on top of these, the first of which is putting the fire out (you may have noticed that I skipped over that one!)

Fire is, frankly, quite easy to put out – until it isn’t.

When it gets so intense that any water dumped on it tends to turn to steam before the fire is extinguished, you have yourself what we in Australia call a bushfire and those in the US refer to as a wildfire. As a general rule, this will only happen if the campsite was inadequately cleared – but that’s sometimes more easily said than done.

The hotter and drier conditions have been lately, the more sensitive to fire the local environment is. Fires can spread by grass or underbrush. I’ve even seen a fire in a tree-stump that spread to surrounding vegetation through the roots of the stump!

Given the right conditions, and the right vegetation in the right condition, and flames can tower double the tree height – sufficiently hot to generate their own weather events. Embers can travel more than a mile (2 km) on the wind to start spot-fires.

Clearing the campsite adequately isn’t just a question of comfort while encamped; it goes directly to the safety of the camp.

In between these extremes, there’s an intermediate situation that I have also encountered in real life, in which a fire can appear to have been extinguished only to flare back into life a few minutes later. I remember one which had been reduced to embers by a lack of fresh fuel, which had been the recipient of two bucket-fulls of earth and one of water – which reignited. Another bucket of water, and a few minutes later, it reignited again. A third bucket of water after breaking up the coals with a rake, and we thought it was finally out, so we set to other tasks – only to notice a small wisp of white smoke emerging fifteen minutes later. Some more water applied to that specific spot finally killed the fire that wouldn’t die. We later surmised that some of the branches we had used for fuel had been more green than they appeared, containing a flammable sap – but that is just speculation.

So, most of the time, a fire will only take a minute or two to extinguish – but every now and then, especially on a hot summer’s day, it may be half an hour. Or a LOT longer if it got out of hand overnight!

Also, for the most part, only one person will be needed for the task, especially if buckets of earth have been prepared in advance – a wise general precaution!

What are the others doing? Well, usually there isn’t enough time required to worry about, but if the fire is giving problems, they might break down the cook’s tent and prepare his pack.

So we need to allow a few minutes – but how many? Let’s make a few assumptions:

80% of the time: 2 minutes.
50% of the remaining time: 5 minutes.
50% of the remaining time: 15 minutes.
Whatever’s left: 30 minutes.

With this profile, we can determine an average time:

0.8 × 2 = 1.6
0.5 × 0.2 × 5 = 0.5
0.5 × 0.1 × 15 = 0.75
0.5 × 0.1 × 30 = 0.3
Total = 1.6 + 0.5 + 0.75 + 0.3 = 3.15 minutes.

Not enough to justify all the efforts – treat a fire that refuses to go out as an encounter when breaking camp and forget it (encounters don’t factor into any routine procedure, they are wild cards).

That leaves only the two optional tasks: if being hunted / pursued, it might be worth spending half an hour removing any trace of your having spent time at the campsite. Most of the time, though, you won’t bother.

Getting a navigational fix on the morning sun is more likely to have to happen regularly. But it only takes a minute or two (at most) and a single person – two at the extreme if you have to mark a landmark some distance away (one person climbs a tree and looks for the landmark, the other marks a tree that’s in the right direction).

Note that this doesn’t have to be a permanent mark – a ribbon loosely affixed to a branch will suffice, and will eventually work loose and blow away.

So, all told we’re talking about 1.5 hours, plus a couple of minutes – most of the time.

Excluded Characters

But there’s a complication: Not all hands will necessarily be available for these tasks. Clerics have their morning prayers, and Wizards their morning memorizations – either way, it comes down to spell selection. This can take considerably longer, depending on your game system, than the 1.5 hours set aside for breaking camp.

There are two approaches to this problem, and the choice is up to the PCs once again; all the GM can do is put the question in front of them. Option one is for the remaining PCs (less guards if necessary) to go hunting/gathering for tonight’s meal, or for lunch fixings. The alternative is to set a time limit on daily memorizations – that 1.5 hours seems convenient – and designate one day a week when you will encamp for as long as necessary. The practical consequence of the latter is that higher level spells used may not be replaced for a while – making it a far more important decision as to when to use one.

In the AD&D era, it wasn’t unusual for spell memorization to take 3 or more hours.

You could calculate how large a delay this shortage of willing (or unwilling) hands will cause – but if you dig into this, with the assumption that those available will pick up the slack, you’ll probably find that the spell-casters’ tents are being folded up and packed away while they are still inside, performing rituals theologic or secular!

The alternative is pack these tasks into the sleeping time of the party. So, the night (for a spellcaster) now has the shape Watch, rest, Memorize – remembering that the rules specify unbroken rest.

These are areas of the rules that I often “monkey” with because they are a great way to impart additional, targeted, flavor.

• “Spell memorization takes the time indicated for the highest level spell being memorized plus one minute per spell of equal or lesser level” cuts the time required massively.
• “Clerics have full choice of all spells their Deity has permitted them to learn, adding 1d3 additional spells to that tally for each castable spell level each time the Cleric gains a character level, but have to perform a two hour prayer ritual each morning to have ANY spells that day – and cannot recharge their spells for 22 hours thereafter without the direct permission of the deity. Up to one hour of that ritual may be conducted in advance as prayer services conducted during the day and on the move at 1/4 efficiency.”

The effects can be subtle but powerful – the “clerics” change described doesn’t change the basic flavor of a cleric in D&D, but it does sharpen it, and focus the character far more on the theology that he represents, at least to the external perception. Almost every time something happens, the Cleric is in mid-prayer (or should be) to fast-track his religious services the next morning.

In any event, the exclusion of spellcasting characters from watch rotation (perhaps from standing a watch at all) can radically alter the calculations.

Another Factor: Alert! Alert! Alert!

While we’re on the subject, I mentioned above that encounters haven’t been factored into these “ideal world” calculations. Not only do these wake everybody up, and mandate extreme physical activity, perhaps inflicting injuries that make sleep harder to come by, but they disrupt sleep cycles. If you spend 15 minutes in combat in the middle of your watch, everyone then has to get back to sleep – and, if they are to get their full quota of sleepy-time, you have to be on watch for an extra 30 minutes to give everyone time to get back to sleep.

And the same is true of any false alarms you might sound.

The temptation therefore has to be to check anything out by yourself rather than waking the entire camp, unless you’re sure that it is dangerous. And that’s a great way to get yourself in over your head.

What may have seemed a trivial mundanity – Watch policy – has suddenly become a significant factor in the resolution of an encounter.

Frankly, it doesn’t matter what the PCs decide as policy – “Always wake us” or “Exercise your own judgment” – the consequences play into the GMs hands if he’s clever enough to take advantage of them.

And still another: Defensive works

Something else that hasn’t been taken into consideration is the erection of any defensive works – because even a trivial wall or breastwork is beyond the capacity of a small adventuring party.

But there can be exceptions. I know of one party who used a spell to erect defenses every time they camped.

Minimal Watch

Another alternative is to wholly or partially abandon the concept of a Watch. This is achieved by stringing some alarms around the campsite. The most effective arrangement that I’ve seen looked like this:

But I’ve also seen an Unseen Servant instructed to watch for anyone or anything approaching the camp and ring a bell if they get too close.

Such an arrangement removes the need for more than one watcher on guard duty, and even lets that one attempt to sleep. You can probably rotate the duty on a nightly basis and be reasonably comfortable and content.

How Long To Adventure?

When you tally up everything, eight hours or so of rest turns into 10-11 under most circumstances. On top of that, 2.5 hours of setting up camp precedes the night-time arrangements, and 1.5 hours of breaking camp follows it – and that’s if you restrict spell memorization time to about an hour. That totals 15 hours out of 24.

Nine hours a day is what’s left. That’s how long you have to adventure. And have lunch.

Sometime in the 70s or 80s, I saw a T-shirt that read “Adventuring is a full-time job”. I doubt whoever created it (and I forget who was wearing it) knew how right they were.

References:

• My primary source and inspiration for this article was Hazel Lockey’s answer on Quora to the question, “Are there any facts that are extremely scary to know?”.
• A secondary source was the first source that the above answer lists as a reference, “The strange-face-in-the-mirror illusion” at Mindhacks.
• The report on the strange-face-in-the-mirror illusion by Giovanni B Caputo can be found at this link.
• I also relied on the Wikipedia page on the Troxler Effect.

All other references are cited and linked in the body of the article.

I’ve always had problems with traps in D&D.

Some of these problems have their origins all the way back in AD&D, others are more recent in origin.

Rules changes with the different editions have solved or mitigated some of my concerns while creating whole new headaches to take their place.

I have solutions to these problems. Some have been in place in every D&D campaign I’ve run this century – these are all on the GM’s side of the screen and have no direct impact on the players (other than yielding better adventures, of course). Others are new and have yet to be tested in a live-fire environment.

But, let’s start by reviewing the problems that these solutions are intended to address.

Problem #1: Trap Placement Makes No Sense

Internal logic used to fall a long way down the list of desirable attributes that a dungeon should posses. Challenge, Loot-vs-Danger ratios, a Narrative through-line, Responsiveness to Player Stimulus, Environmental Rationalism – these were frequently considered more important. Every village had a dungeon, sometimes several. And every dungeon had traps; that’s just the way it was.

• Challenge: Dungeons should not be completable by bazorting everything that moved and looting anything that stayed put long enough. There needed to be some input from a stray brain cell or two, as well. At the same time, it was very bad form to make completion of the dungeon dependent on a player thinking the right thing, solving the right puzzle, or making the right blind choice – and even worse to have it come down to a PC die roll. These competing interests created a lot of debate and discussion back in the day when all was shiny and new.
• Loot-vs-Danger ratios: These were also the subject of intense debate back in the late 70s and early 80s.
  • There were those who advocated a strict policy of risk-vs-reward, assigning a linear relationship between dungeon level or character-level-required and these variables.
  • Others advocated a fuzzier relationship (and this is the faction that eventually came to dominate thinking, because the Monster Manual and it’s treasure classes supported it).
  • A few people applied mathematics – every monster HP was worth so much in treasure, every monster Special Ability was worth a magic item, and an exponential or geometric relationship existed between stacking of such things and upgrades to these in number or value.
  • A few people thought it was fine to be niggardly on the upper levels of a dungeon if you were more generous to an equal extent in the lower levels.
  • Some people observed that this made the lower levels much more fun for their players and simply deleted the niggardly upper levels from their designs – and thus the term “Monty Haul” entered the gaming lexicon.
• Narrative Through-Lines: I subscribed to this priority from word one. It means that there was a story to the dungeon, a history that the players were becoming part of. To understand that history was to acquire clues as to the solution to problems that might otherwise be insoluble, because the history was used to place everything within the dungeon.
• Responsiveness to Player Stimulus: This simply meant that the patterns of behavior within the dungeon changed in response to the actions of the PCs. You couldn’t take out an Orc Patrol without triggering changes in the behavior and status of certain Orc encounters later in the Dungeon, for example. This is often harder than it looks to do well – how does killing an Owlbear on level 3 impact a cult of Troglodytes on level 6, for example? Who gets additional resources, and what do they do about them? This involved perceiving the dungeon as a dynamic environment with its own social and political structures, which would react and respond in response to every action by the PCs. I once met a GM who had been working on the one dungeon for more than 20 years; his notes on the internal realpolitik ran for more than 600 pages. It was a work of art – and totally impractical to play. But less complex interweavings added massively to every aspect of a dungeon.
• Environmental Rationalism: Ever found a 10′ by 10′ room containing an ancient Red Dragon and his hoard? I have. Ever wondered how you could breathe at lower levels? How much air does a Beholder need, anyway? What do all the residents eat? Solving these problems creates a Dungeon ecology, and is a way of imposing rationalism and rationality upon the irrational. There was a time, stimulated by a series of articles in The Dragon, when this became the dominant design goal of GMs all over the place, because the dungeons immediately became more believable, more interesting, and immersion immediately increased.

I’m sure you’ll agree that all of these are worthy of consideration, if not deep reflection. But by the time you get to the end of that impractically-long list, if you even got that far, Trap Placement seemed pretty irrelevant. Stick ’em anywhere, and Don’t – at all costs – let them become a trail of breadcrumbs to the major loot!

Problem #2: Spotlight on Thieves/Rogues

Thieves, in the AD&D paradigm, had to be good at everything that might be considered the involuntary transfer of ownership. Sure, you would be better at some than others, but general competence in all was part of the package. And, if you’re already skilled at picking locks, surely finding and disarming traps wasn’t such a difficult leap?

Besides, this was a time when Thieves were a LOT less effective in combat than Fighters. Many GMs (myself included) subscribed to the notion that you couldn’t Hide In Shadows if you were under direct enemy observation – you needed a meat-shield to create a distraction (Spellcasters were more effective at creating a distraction but too vulnerable to last in that capacity).

[Related question: How many thieves can Hide in a single Shadow? Answer: An infinite number – according to the rules, at least by implication, because no limit is specified!]

Placing traps meant ensuring that the Fighters and Mages didn’t get to hog the spotlight. I’ve even seen it suggested on some bulletin boards that there should be a fixed ratio: so many traps at such-and-such a difficulty modifier for every Hit Die of monsters present. Others suggest that the Dungeon be allocated a budget – every HD of monsters comes out of that budget, and whatever’s left gets split up and placed as Traps.

Somewhere along the way, it became accepted that Thieves could Hide in one Shadow, and then move from that shadow to another without breaking cover if it was within their normal movement range. Dungeon environments, hardly models of excellent illumination, encouraged this thinking.

With that, Thieves – now called Rogues – became scary-good at combat, when used properly. They might be slow-firing, having to Hide and then Move before striking, but they could inflict massive damage every two or three rounds; all the fighter-types had to do was pin an enemy down in the meantime and keep that enemy’s attention on them. Paladins, by virtue of their always-immaculate armor, and Barbarians, because they were all shouty and in-your-face, made excellent choices as rogue meat-shields. And the major justification for this treatment of Traps went away – but design practices didn’t change.

Problem #3: Trap Resolution runs counter to good roleplay

When a fighter encounters a strange creature, there follows an intense ballet of inspection and debate even as a flurry of blows are unleashed. What special tricks has the GM loaded the creature with? What trickery (pardon: “clever design technique”) is he going to use, this time?

Are you better off drawing your broadsword or holding onto your torch and waving it in the creature’s face? Is it vulnerable to cold, or heat, or lightning? What are it’s capabilities? Every combat round presents new evidence, yielding new insights.

In a word, there is engagement.

Throw in tactics, and multiple opponents, perhaps mixed groups of opponents, and there was plenty to keep Fighters, Mages and Clerics occupied and in the spotlight.

Every turn, that spotlight would swing around to the Rogue. And what was his involvement? Most of the time, it was at best “I’m still hiding in shadows and maneuvering to get behind [target X].” – or, worse yet, squealing like a stuck pig when forced into the front lines, “I’m a frikking thief, not a fighter, damn it!”

The Thief was most useful in between combat encounters – exploring, scouting, mapping, searching, climbing – and most of that simply got hand-waved. Quite frankly, there were times when the thief could have been completely forgotten were it not for the occasional trap to put them into the spotlight.

On those “rare” occasion that the searches turned up something – a trap, let us say – what was the usual response? “I attempt to disarm the trap,” followed by a single die roll. A little exposition from the GM and the “encounter” was over. Compared with the multiple rounds of a combat, this is anticlimactic at best.

There’s no engagement. There’s that word again.

Some GMs tried to counter this by demanding the thief describe what he’s doing. The first few times, the character might do so off the top of the player’s head, but before long a standard list would materialize, to be extended and annotated when necessary. “Push, pull, slide left, right, up, down, turn it to the left then the right – just a little, just enough to know which way it operates….”

The third or fourth time you hear this list recited verbatim, the temptation to hand-wave it becomes overwhelming because you know that this litany will happen every single time thereafter. And you’re suddenly back at the single die roll again.

What’s more, extensive descriptions of the traps had to be prepared by the GM to support these detailed action requests. Every time. That’s easy at first, but by the fifteenth trap, it’s a lot harder to be creative and original – or to sound interested. Going back to the single die roll relieves the GM of that burden.

Problem #4: Save Or Die

Okay, so there’s a trap. The rogue is about to attempt to disarm it, but isn’t sure of success. If he’s got it right, the game continues; if not, one or more of the PCs could be killed. It all comes down to this die roll….

How is that different from a save-or-die spell?

As I’ve made clear in the past – see Beyond Unreasonable: Challenge Failure Modes and Exceeding the Extraordinary: The Meaning Of Feats for discussion (“rants” is impolite, but possibly more accurate) on the subject.

The more narrative-oriented your campaign is, the greater the risk of it going off the rails because of save-or-die circumstances. The only obvious solution (there are inobvious solutions but they take me a long way off-point and I don’t have the time) is to eliminate save-or-die situations. Well, that’s fine in terms of Mages and Clerics, but where does it leave the Rogue?

Answer: Making a single die roll in which the outcome doesn’t really matter.

My, what a long way we’ve come.

So, let’s talk solutions to these problems.

GMing Solution: Moderation is key

First, let’s talk about Trap Placement. All those considerations of Dungeon Design are worthy of consideration, and I never design one or emplace one without giving each some thought – but only as means to an end.

I start with the History – but this is not a fully detailed, specific item, it’s a paragraph per level of broad outlines that I produce in synopsized form. This gives clues to the architecture, original content, and style of the dungeon. In particular, I contemplate the ergonomics of the original architects:

• Ergonomics and the Non-human,
• By Popular Demand: The Ergonomics Of Dwarves, and
• Studs, Buttons, and Static Cling: Creating consistent non-human tech.

I then move on to the Ecology & Environment – refer to my specific articles on the subject,

• Creating ecology-based random encounters: The Philosophy of meanderings,
• Creating ecology-based random encounters: This Eats That,
• Creating ecology-based random encounters: Encounters with meaning, and
• A Population Of Dinosaurs and the impact on RPG ecologies.

This identifies current “occupants” and their habits.

I then employ these as context in determining trap placement – every trap should have a purpose, and should not interfere excessively with a more important function of the structure as it was at the time.

An especially nasty trick: traps that can only be disabled if a specific trap or two early in the dungeon have NOT been disabled. Forces the party to go back and reset it, exposing them to incidental dangers. What’s more, since they can’t assume this is the only one, they have to reset them ALL.

Each new occupant of an area will change it to fit their needs. This may include modifying or improving or breaking/removing traps (The first time a rogue identifies a space for a trap only to find that they can’t access the mechanism, watch the paranoia ramp up! YOU know that the mechanism has been removed, but THEY don’t…)

The history and ecology will give you some idea of who inhabited the space after the original designer, and how they lived, and hence, provides a guideline to the changes to the Traps. In particular, watch out for poison changes, the addition of diseases as vicious complicating factors to traps, disabling and resetting of traps, the installation of new traps, and misdirections.

More intelligent designers may well have had a deliberate “trap strategy”, EG a series of easily-beaten traps to lull intruders into a false sense of security, traps that are intended merely to delay or inconvenience intruders, traps to channel intruders into position for ambushing, etc.

The more successions of occupancy, the more this original strategy will have been diluted, though intelligent occupiers may well have preserved it – and learned from it. Sure, it may be more convenient to off intruders before they get their hands on the loot, but getting them on their way out is better than nothing!

The result: sensible placement of traps.

GM/Player Solution: Break Down That Die Roll

Next, let’s deal with that “one die roll” problem. The answer to this comes from TORG: Divide the ‘traps process’ into four parts (five, if you count detection in the first place).

1. Inspection
2. Analysis
3. Theory
4. Application

1. Inspection

The Inspection action is all about identifying the key features and components of the trap. Fail, and you will miss something – a safety mechanism, a secondary trigger, a secondary effect, or simply some piece of information that you need in order to disarm the trap. Failure by more than 5 should mean you’ve missed 2-4 items on the list.

The “expert” may be aided by other characters searching under his direction. Unless these have their own “Disable Traps” skill,

2. Analysis

The Analysis action compares the identified features with theoretical knowledge of a variety of traps, the goal being a complete understanding of what the trap was designed to do and how (in general) it does it.

Any sort of mechanical engineering skill or equivalent should add +2 to the die roll for this action. A success may be able to overcome a failure in the Inspection phase by identifying a feature that should be present but hasn’t been found. How the GM handles this is up to them, but I recommend that attempts to re-roll the Inspection phase on this basis should incur a -5 per attempt after the first (or +5 to the DC per attempt after the first, or +20% to the target or die roll), depending on how your game system describes such things.

The above was originally without the “after the first” qualifier, but I realized that it could be argued that this was a roll to fill in missing details, not to start over from scratch, so it should be easier. But, if you fail again, knowing what you are looking for, the difficulty ramps up very quickly. Once you reach the point where only a critical success will achieve the task, further attempts may not be made.

Every suggestion by another character as to how the trap might work adds 1d6 plus the INT mod of the character making the suggestion and subtracts 1d6 to the characters skill at achieving this step. Some GMs may permit the substitution of WIS mod for INT mod if the character is attempting to apply “common sense” to the discussion. The negative reflects the possibility of sending the character’s thoughts off in entirely the wrong direction, i.e. hindering the process. These modifiers may be applied after the initial roll by the rogue but before the GM details the results – which might then become “You thought you had it figured out, but after considering Magnu’s suggestion, you aren’t so sure any more”.

3. Theory

In the theory phase, the Rogue attempts to deduce the point of greatest vulnerability of the trap, given the resources available to him. No-one can help him do this. However, the rogue can ask specific questions of a character with appropriate knowledge that may earn him a +1 to his attempt, at the GM’s discretion.

For example, knowledge of the culture that built the trap originally, or modified the trap most recently (if those are known) may contain a hint as to the way they do things.

The character asked rolls against his knowledge and the answer either adds or subtracts 1 depending on whether or not the roll was successful. If the GM considers the question irrelevant, the result is +0.

Each such question after the first incurs a +5 difficulty penalty to the “expert’s” die roll – so if you ask too many questions, you will definitely begin impairing your ability to succeed.

4. Application

Once you think you know how to disarm the trap, you enter the Application phase, in which you apply your theory. If the GM deems your activities appropriate to solving the problem, a successful roll in this phase disarms the trap; if not, you may think it’s been disarmed when it has not.

Note that the solution may draw upon more than one party member; while the rogue has his training and intuitive sense of such things to draw upon, he may require more raw force to be applied than he can muster (cue a fighter with an appropriate tool), or heat or cold from the mage may be necessary.

Another nasty idea: A trap that is disarmed by moving a hidden control in a certain direction, but which triggers a second trap if moved too far. Most rogues stop searching after the first success. Though the fact that some of the elements identified in the Inspection phase don’t seem to have any purpose after Analysis may offer a clue.

What this is all about is (1) bringing about engagement in the process of disarming the trap, making it more than just a die roll; and (2) involving more party members than just the rogue in that process to further encourage that engagement.

An example

I had a very detailed example thought out, but time is getting away from me, so the illustrative diagram I intended to provide has had to go by the wayside. Here’s a simple top-down map instead:



The results of a successful Inspection roll. A is the top step of the staircase into the room, which contains a pressure plate. B is a thick slab of stone with steel bands reinforcing it; the slab weights 32 tons and rests on two steel rails (C). D is a relief sculpture on the wall with a number of suspicious-looking holes suitable for the firing of poisoned darts. E is a pair of pedestals recessed into the wall which also contain pressure plates. F is a series of brass urns of different sizes full of sand; G is a matching set of iron urns full of honey. Finally, H is a large lever that is set into the floor.

There’s a lot here to Analyze, but geometry offers some clues. The lever, H, is locked unless someone is standing at A, fully exposed to the darts from D. Throwing the lever releases the darts unless the trap’s safety mechanism is activated. This obviously involves the pressure plates (E) and the urns (F and G) – put the right urns on the right plates, and stand at A, and the lever retracts the stone slab (B) along the rails (C) and into the recess instead of firing the levers. That makes this a combination lock with 256 combinations and a booby trap for those who pick the wrong combination.

So, to the Theory of the trap. There is only one combination of urns that holds exactly the same weight – the 6th and the 4th urns from F and G respectively. The pressure plates have no way of distinguishing brass from iron or honey from wheat, so it doesn’t matter which of these two urns goes on which pedestal. On a very good roll, the rogue will realize that the wheat has long since dried out significantly, and he needs to add a half-filled waterskin on the ‘wheat’ pedestal, if not then he will go one size urn too large, matching the 4th G urn with the 7th wheat urn. Or he could empty the wheat out and replace it with fresh – if he has any. He also assumes (correctly) that the urns have to be placed simultaneously, making this a three-person job. Four, if someone is going to shield the rogue from the darts should he get it wrong; those placing the urns can move toward the rear corners of the room and be out of the line of fire.

Finally, the Application phase, putting the theory to the test: the urns have to be lifted into place and positioned simultaneously, which is easy enough if the rogue gives a countdown. If the party get everything right, B will slide open and reveal another staircase going down into a part of the dungeon they have not explored. If not, poisoned darts will fire from D at A as expected. What won’t be expected is that a pair of trap doors positioned at those back corners will open up under the feet of anyone taking refuge there; after a thirty foot drop and a forty-five foot drop, respectively, this will deposit those falling on different levels of the dungeon. These counter-weighted trap doors will close automatically and re-lock until another attempt is made to throw the lever (H). As things stand, then, the rogue can get this 90% right and still split the party, even if he survives what he considers the primary threat.

I refer to this as a Compound Trap in my notes. It’s a clear and simple term which covers a great number of possibilities – all it really means is that two or more traps are designed to interact in some way.

If the rogue gets a really good application roll, he might get the sense from the resistance of the lever that it’s doing something he wasn’t expecting, but until he figures out what, and finds the trapdoor elements that he missed, he has no hope of disarming the trap.

Of course, this might not be the only entrance; it might simply bypass a High-risk Low-reward sector of the dungeon. That makes it a short-cut that those who belong there know, and intruders don’t – with the intent of making an entire adventuring party vulnerable if they try and get through it.

Difficulties/Targets

You’ll note that I avoided any mention of actual numbers in that example. That’s because I haven’t discussed what those numbers should be as yet – so why muddy the waters?

There are six philosophic approaches to how the difficulty / target numbers for a “disarm traps” that has been broken down into four separate actions (I’m tempted to say, “four separate interactions”) in this way, grouped into two strands of 4 and 2 respectively:

• • Philosophy 1: All DCs at the original
  • Philosophy 2a: All DCs at 5 less than the original
  • Philosophy 2b: All DCs at 5 more than the original
  • Philosophy 3: All DCs at 1/2 the original
  • Philosophy 4: Calculate the Odds
     
  • Philosophy A: All at the same difficulty
  • Philosophy B: Trade-offs, capped

I’m not going to go into these in great detail, but want to make a few notes. The first is that either A or B can combine with any of the 1-4 results – so 1A is a valid combination, and so is 2aB and so on.

Philosophy 1: All DCs at the original

This makes it a lot harder to succeed – but, since DCs are notoriously easy for higher-level characters, this is not necessarily a bad thing.

Refer “How Hard Can It Be?” – Skill Checks under the microscope for more on the phenomenon in question.

If you have to make 4 rolls at 12/- to succeed, the net chance of success is 12/20×12/20×12×20×12/20, or (12/20)^4, or 12^4 / 20^4, all of which equal 12.96%.

If you have to make 4 rolls at 17/- to succeed, the net chance of success is, similarly, 17/20×17/20×17×20×17/20, or (17/20)^4, or 17^4 / 20^4, all of which equal 52.2%.

If you have to make 4 rolls at 12+ to succeed, your chances of success are a little harder to assess. You have a 20-12=8/- chance of succeeding on d20; so the chance of success of all four rolls is a mere (8/20)×(8/20)×(8×20)×(8/20), or (8/20)^4, or 8^4 / 20^4, or a mere 2.56%.

Even if you succeed on anything but a 1, your chances of success on all four rolls is only 81.45% – meaning that almost one time in five, you’ll blow it.

Philosophy 2a: All DCs at 5 less than the original

This represents an attempt to compensate for the diminution of chances at success. It also means that the chances of success are effectively capped in D&D, unable to rise any higher than 14/-, because a 20 automatically succeeds. Any improvement beyond that simply vanishes.

It means that a 12/- chance overall becomes a 17/- on each of the 4 rolls, or a 52.2% chance of overall success. That’s not quite as good as the single-roll 60% but it’s not far off.

How about a low roll, like 2/-? Without the +5, you would have 0.01% chance of success, but with it, the chance of making all four rises to a whole 1.5%.

Philosophy 2b: All DCs at 5 more than the original

Some GMs might note that there are opportunities within the system of getting bonuses through assistance from other characters, and want to “make room” for them. At low character levels, this is probably too extreme, but if you’re dealing with a mid-to-high level campaign, getting +5 or more to different die rolls (especially the first two) is relatively easy. Or you might decide to encourage the cooperation between characters while not letting it get out of hand, which suggests a smaller negative, something like 2 less.

Philosophy 3: All DCs at 1/2 the original

Assessing the impact once again requires a little math.

Let’s start with a character who has a skill of 4, going up against a trap of DC 10. His normal roll required is 6 or better, which means that he has a 15/- chance of success using the standard one-roll.

Under this ruling, the DC for each of the checks becomes 5. The die roll required becomes 1 or better, succeeding 19 times out of 20 – which we already know gives roughly an 80% chance of success.

Same character, DC 15. Which means we have to decide how to handle halves – you can round in the character’s favor, or round against the character, or split the difference, giving two rolls rounded up and two down. I tend to use the first of these, but it’s your choice.

Be that as it may, the character needs an 11 or better to succeed, so he has a 10/- chance of success or 50% – on the one-roll-takes-all original system. If all four rolls were at 10/-, his net chance on four rolls would be just 6.25%, which argues really strongly in favor of SOME sort of adjustment.

Halving the DC means that it becomes 7 or 8. Subtracting the skill of 4 means that the character requires rolls of 3 or 4 respectively. Rounding in the character’s favor chooses the lower of these. Which means that the character succeeds on 17/- for each roll, which we already know means that he has a 52.2% chance of success, overall. Slightly better than the 50%, but close enough.

Same character, DC 20. The character needs a 16 or better to succeed, which is the equivalent of 5/-, or 25% chance under the one-roll method.

Splitting that means halving the DC to 10. Taking off the 4 skill, the character now needs 6 or better, or a 15/- chance of success on any one roll. Result: 31.64% chance of success.

So, for a relatively low skill total, this adjustment works well. Let’s look at the other end of the scale.

Character has a skill of 22. If he’s up against a trap of DC 25, he needs 3 or better on the dice, an 18/- chance, which is the equivalent of 90%.

Halving the DC and rounding in the character’s favor gives DC 12. A roll of -10 succeeds – but you can’t roll less than 1, and 1 is always a failure. So his chance of success is 19/-, and the chance of getting all four rolls is about 80%.

Let’s up the ante to DC 40. Now the character needs 18 or better on a single roll – 15% chance of success. Four rolls at DC 20: the character needs -2. But the lowest result that doesn’t fail is a 2. So that’s a 95% chance of succeeding on any one roll, or 81.45% chance of success.

So the system fails at high skill levels. Plan accordingly.

Philosophy 4: Calculate the Odds

We’ve been doing a lot of odds calculations in these examples – and they aren’t all that hard. If you can work out what the chance of success would be on the one-roll, it’s not all that difficult to tailor a roll to match.

The calculation is the square root of the square root of the chance of overall success as a decimal.

Let’s look at the example that failed the last proposal: Skill 22, DC 40. Roll required is 18 or better on a d20 – meaning a 3 or better chance of success or 15%, which is a decimal value of 0.15. That gives 62.23% chance for each individual roll – call it 60%, which is a 12/-, for three of the rolls. So, 0.6×0.6×0.6×FourthRoll = 0.15; that gives a 4th roll of 0.69444444, or close enough to 70%.

So that’s 12/-, 12/-, 12/-, 14/- – which translates back into 9+, 9+, 9+, 7+.

An alternative might be 9+, 9+, 8+, 8+; that gives 15.21%.

Another way of calculating the correct result is 10^[log(target chance)/4], with both chance and result in the decimal format.

Philosophy A: All at the same difficulty

Some people like to keep things simple. This does that.

Philosophy B: Trade-offs, capped

Others like the notion of being able to reflect the specifics of the challenge by making some parts of the four-step effort more difficult than others.

Let’s take the same Skill 22 DC 40 check that I used above, and which yielded rolls of 9+, 9+, 9+, 7+.

What if the first number was a 4+, meaning that the trap’s elements are quite obvious, but the difficulty in understanding them is rather trickier. 0.15 = 0.85×X×Y×0.60 so X×Y = 0.294 – and the square root of 0.294 is 0.54, which is close enough to 55%, or 10+. So we get 4+, 10+, 10+, 12+.

A simpler answer

Here’s a much simpler answer: instead of a single “Disarm Traps” skill, why not have four of them, one for each stage of the process? When the game system gives an improved chance of disarming traps, you simply have to allocate 4x the increase amongst your four sub-skills.

This permits characters to specialize in different stages of the process, which can make a group of four rogues system-breaking to some extent. But you can avoid that by specifying that the worst of the four skills has to be within 4 out of 20 of the best – so there’s a small band for customization, but the scores are close enough that such trickery has a minimal effect.

This then opens the door to magic (and mundane) items that affect just one of these sub-skills – a manual of traps that gives +1 to the Analysis phase, for example. Once again, these can become game-breaking if you are too liberal with them, so be cautious.

Eliminating Save-or-Die

I really, REALLY hate “Save Or Die” mechanics. I have four solutions that apply to individuals and one that applies to a group situation to suggest as alternatives. Make no mistake, the party will be hurting almost as badly after one of these. To make up the difference, I also offer a fifth suggestion below.

1. Percentage Damage

Option 1: “Lethal” traps are rated for percentage damage done. An 80% chance removes 80% of a character’s hit points. A 95% trap removes 95% of a character’s hit points. Always round in the character’s favor.

2. 1 HD

Rate traps by HD as though they were any other encounter. If it goes off, roll that many dice for the damage total. If the character’s HD are d10s, use d10s; if d4s, use d4s.

Since characters get CON bonuses, whereas the trap does not, their capacity exceeds their level if they have high CON. But this can still be lethal, it just won’t happen as often.

3. 1 HD smaller

This works off the character’s level and the size of their hit die, which means that it presupposes that the increase in hit points per level reflects better ability to dodge and so on. If the character gets a d10 hit die, use a d8 for the damage; if a d8, use a d6; if a d6, use a d4; if a d4, use a d3 (i.e. use d6 and halve the total).

Even if the character has a negative CON modifier, which would be rare amongst PCs, he has a genuine likelihood of surviving such a trap. A more normal character, with a +1 or +2 CON bonus, would probably have about 3HP per level left. We’re still talking massive HP losses.

4. 1 HD left

The simplest and most brutal alternative. Characters hit by the trap have 1 HD + CON Bonus left. If generous, you might maximize that HD, so that a low CON bonus doesn’t risk immediate death.

5. Damage Pooling

Rate the trap in HD as per option 2. If the largest HD in the party is a d10, use a d12; if a d8, use a d10; if a d6, use a d8. Heaven help your PCs if the largest HD in the party is a d4. Kill them immediately.

If the trap gets triggered, roll the HD worth of dice of the indicated size and add the number of PCs as though it were a CON modifier. This is the total damage inflicted on the party. How they split it up is up to them – but the more HP you have, the more you can soak up. Only one rule: you can’t suicide a character by taking a full compliment of HP damage without GM permission.

This only works if the trap’s damage affects multiple characters – EG poisoned gas, rain of arrows, hail of boulders, flooded chamber with sealed exits, etc..

Supplementary Stat Loss

To make up for the lack of immediate death, ding the survivors a permanent -1 to a stat. This is NOT something that can be healed or restored by any means. If generous, let the player roll for which stat is affected. If mean, make it their primary stat (players can choose if their class has several). If really generous, let the player pick – but put a cap on how many times the player can ding the one stat.

A Common thread exists to several of these: what does gaining a HD with a level advancement actually mean? I’ve hinted at this in the text above, but thought I should state it explicitly.

After all, changing the interpretation of what a Hit Point actually represents has massive repercussions on how Healing works, as shown in the All Wounds Are Not Alike series which looked in detail at the phenomenon.

Broadening and Limiting Rogues

This article is wending it’s way toward a conclusion. To close it out, I have some general advice to GMs on how to handle rogues in their campaigns. I’m offering three specific suggestions:

1. Return of the Direct Observation rule-of-thumb
2. Moving from shadow to shadow breaks cover
3. A free HD for Rogues (and mages) at 1st level and Level-as-a-stat AC bonus

1. Return of the Direct Observation rule-of-thumb

I’ve discussed this in the main text. I strongly recommend a return to the “You can’t Hide In Shadows if you are under direct observation when you attempt to do so” rule of yesteryear.

That doesn’t mean that if you’re already hiding, you become apparent to someone glancing your way; once hidden, you stay hidden until you do something to “break cover”.

Which brings me to item number two:

2. Moving from shadow to shadow breaks cover

Again, this is something I’ve discussed in the main body of this article. That said, characters can move and then act, so a rogue can move (breaking cover) and then make a fresh attempt to Hide In Shadows – so long as they have moved from one shadow to another, and don’t fall foul of rule 1 above.

3. A free HD for Rogues (and mages) at 1st level and 10+level-as-a-stat AC bonus to 10th level

Both of these rules reduce a rogue’s combat capability. I want to put that ability back, but in a form more suited to the nature of the character; they aren’t fighters and shouldn’t act like them, even in melee combat on the front lines. I came up with two solutions, neither of them quite enough on their own – and liked one so much that I’m recommending extending it to mages.

Let’s break them down:

A free HD for Rogues and Mages at 1st level:

What the heck, make it a d6. They don’t get any CON bonus or penalty, they just get a small handful of extra HP. Just enough to mitigate the likelihood of getting snuffed at 1st or second level.

10+level-as-a-stat AC bonus for Rogues to 10th level

Giving rogues a bonus to AC makes them slipperier, harder to hit, more adept at dodging. It doesn’t make them any better at hitting an enemy. The question was always how to interpret the general principle?

The solution was to treat Level as though it were a stat and apply the stat modifier as the AC bonus. But a strict interpretation of that means that the “bonus” would be a negative value for the first 10 levels – they have different zero points.

So, a 1st level rogue looks up 11 on the stat table and gets a bonus of +0.
A 2nd-level rogue looks up 12 on the stat table and gets a bonus of +1.
and so on.

A tenth-level rogue looks up 20 and gets a bonus of +5.
An eleventh-level rogue still looks up 20 and gets the same +5 bonus.

As a bonus, this means that a rogue is harder to hit than a fighter of the same DEX, but not excessively so.

If you like this approach, it’s also worth contemplating using 11+Level instead of 10+level. This gives the rogue an immediate +1 bonus to their AC at 1st level, so that the bonus observation is true even at 1st level. It means that the bonuses kick in at odd-numbered levels instead of even-numbered ones, and it means that at 10th level, the bonus maxes out one higher at +6. None of these seem game-breaking to me.

Whew! It’s been a journey – we started talking about Traps and ended up talking Rogues. But that’s because the two subjects are inextricably entwined; and that’s part of the problem with Traps.

That’s why I’m such a big fan of the four-way Skill Split for disarming traps. Making it a process and providing rules for the interaction of other characters with that process makes dealing with traps more engaging, more interesting, and far more interactive. Perhaps not to the same extent as combat, but right up there. That can only be a good thing.

As one more side-benefit, that list of standard actions goes away. But the detailed write-up by the GM is back; so there is a price to pay. But it’s a small one, and worth every penny.

One final question, then: did you find the Bear-trap?

I was watching a time-shifted repeat of “My Cousin Vinny” the other day.

I’ve written of this movie before – some 3 1/2 years ago, in Review Roundup: Three Products Of Interest – and of the impact of the profanity used by several of the principle cast members in their roles.

To quote from that review:

Quite a long time ago, I was writing something for one of my campaigns, half-watching something on Television (probably Formula 1) at the same time.

When whatever the program was ended, I was deep in a train of thought and so left the idiot box to babble in the background. What started playing was a comedy – most of which leave me stone cold – that I would never have watched under normal circumstances, “My Cousin Vinny”. Much to my surprise, it gradually wrenched my attention away from what I was doing and held me riveted – when I wasn’t laughing out loud.

One of the first movies I bought on DVD was, consequently, “My Cousin Vinny”. I was a bit surprised that it had an R rating but not excessively so – there were a number of sexual innuendos and references, not to mention Marisa Tomei’s ‘biological clock’ that would have definitely earned it a PG-13 at the very least. It wouldn’t have taken much to nudge it over the line.

When I watched it, however, I found that it was so saturated with blue language that had been cut out of the version aired on television that it was hard work trying to work out what the characters were talking about. The characters may have been more realistic (in terms of a New York lawyer and his girlfriend) but the story was being swamped by the delivery system.

I gave away that DVD, and recorded the version that had been edited for television the next time it aired. I still have that videotape. And I leaned a valuable lesson about the value of swearing in media and fiction.

Obviously, I am now looking to replace that videotape copy with a DVD since my VCR died a year or so ago.

Consequently, I have watched the televised version on at least three occasions, only to find that the version now being aired is the uncensored one (normally, something I would normally be all in favor of, but not in this particular case. But I keep watching, and hoping).

This time, instead of immediately hitting the ‘delete’ button upon making this discovery, I let the movie play on, hoping that time had raised my tolerance levels – after all, I’ve known people in real life who used a lot more blue language even than the foul-mouthed characters in the movie, and had no trouble dealing with them.

But no, it had not. And so my attention began to wane, and my thoughts to drift. I remembered writing a review of the movie and wondering if it was ever published (it hasn’t been), and trying to remember what I had written about it. I found myself thinking that the problem was that the blue language ended up being the “dominant color” of the characters concerned, masking all the nuance beneath the surface.

That, in turn, led to the thought that this was a case of an excess of character, and a demonstration of why that was undesirable. And then, as I usually do, I thought about applying that insight to RPGs.

In the past, I’ve looked at NPC Descriptions, and asked, How Much Is Enough?

I’ve written multiple articles on getting into character quickly, two of which are dedicated to NPCs: Three Feet In Someone Else’s Shoes, and, Getting Into Character pt 1: NPCs (pt 2 dealt with getting inside the heads of the PCs for various purposes, especially plot construction).

And, in the past, I’ve provided tools for generating NPCs more quickly – The Ubercharacter Wimp, and The three minute (or less) NPC, and Creating Partial NPCs To Speed Game Prep being three of the most important and useful (I’m keeping this post short so that there’s time for readers to check out some of the other articles).

It was when my thoughts about an excess of character connected with memories of the last of those, that this article began to take shape.

You see, the thrust of the Partial NPC is about game mechanics. This suggested that there was an equivalent process for characterization that can and should be explored.

How Much NPC Do You Really Need?

Okay, so the first question has to be, How Much do you really need? Once we have a minimum, we can look at generation methods, and any shortcomings that might manifest, and how to minimize them.

Here’s the list that I came up with:

1. Enough Personality to make the NPC an individual.
2. Depiction or Description
3. Speech patterns and/or accents and/or languages
4. Something for the NPC to talk about.
5. An opinion on something to share.
6. How competent they are to do whatever a PC is likely to want them to do.
7. An attitude toward the PCs.

For any given NPC that is not to recur frequently/regularly, that’s enough – per appearance.

1. Enough Personality

Sometimes this might take a line, sometimes two. Write in bullet points but put several on a line – this makes the list quick to digest.

2. Depiction or Description

If you’re lucky, you have an image to represent the NPCs appearance. If not, you have to provide a description. The shorter and more succinct you make this, the more easily-digested it will be by the players. “Hawaiian Shirt, Shorts, Sandals, Cane Hat, and Sunglasses. 70 years old but still spry. Okay looks for age.” What more do you need? This example creates an image that reeks of tourist. You might add a camera around his neck.

Take the same description, minus the sunglasses, and add the word “faded” to the shirt and shorts, and ‘Deeply tanned’ after ‘spry’ and you have a fisherman from the tropics.

In truth, the shorts can probably be presumed; they aren’t adding anything much to the description. Or replace them with something more specific – “Cut-off jeans”.

3. Mode Of Communication

Once the players have digested the description and any job title / function, the primary way that they are going to interface with the character is through speech. That makes this important enough to rate a line containing a word or two. Make them descriptive, but make sure that you can deliver on them – these are as much instructions to the GM as they are descriptive.

“Meek English, flatterer” is quite enough. “Passionate, Seductive, Italian” is equally vibrant. Note that this is a guide to behavior as much as to speech.

4. Something To Talk About

The subject might not come up, but it can be alluded to, and small talk is a common way to pass any waiting time. So give them an interest or a hobby.

5. An Opinion

Similarly, everyone should have a ‘hot button’ that provokes a response, positive or negative or neutral. That button might not get pushed, but the NPC is looking for an excuse to push it themselves – opinions love to be shared!

“Stupid weatherman on Channel 4 thinks it’s going to rain tonight, I’ve never heard such idiocy. Some pencil-pusher from out-of-town, that’s clear – any local would know that it won’t be until the morning sea-breezes push the cloud cover overhead, tomorrow morning.”

“Twickenspur for Congress! He’ll sort them out, good and proper!”

“Nixon followed the old adage, ‘it’s better to be thought a criminal than to be convicted and prove the point’.”

“Beige goes with anything.”

“The Daffodils are coming! The Daffodils are coming! Tickets go on sale next week! I’m so excited, I could just scream!!!”

6. How Competent They Are

Presumably, the PC(s) will want the NPC to do something – it might be as simple as “Tell Mr Deerborne that I’m here” to “Let’s discuss your vote in Congress” to “Guilty or Not Guilty?”.

7. An Attitude

Is the NPC inclined to be helpful, to be coldly professional, to be bureaucratic, to be mercenary, or to block or stifle the PC? Is it because the PC has dark hair, needs a shave, or has a large sword on their back? Are Elves the lowest form of Pond Scum, or the epitome of culture and civilization?

#4-#6 essentially give the NPC something to convey, #3 gives a way to convey it, #7 gives a direction to the encounter, and #1 and #2 are about who the NPC is.

Depending on the actual outcome in play, opinions and attitudes may change. If not, they are likely to be consistent over several encounters with the individual in question. If the nature of what is required of the NPC changes, so may their competence to satisfy the request. Appearance tends to change day-to-day, at least in some respects – but perhaps not if the NPC is wearing a uniform. But dropping in some minor change is a great way to hand-wave at the passage of time – the NPC has had a haircut since the PC was here last, for example.

Problems

So far as I can see, there are two potential problems with this approach that our generation technique will have to solve.

The first is Consistency. You can’t have someone be a Frenchman one week and from Quebec the next time they appear. Additional complications of this type can also occur with names that are not obvious in gender – someone named Jean, for example. Is that “Jeen” or “Zhawn”?

The second is also Consistency. Because there has been no attempt to get under the character’s skin and understand / define why they feel the way they do, or like the things they do, it’s easy to adopt (sequentially) two incompatible pieces of characterization.

The most obvious way of solving this problem is to base one appearance on the previous one, but that means that character details can’t be stored where they are the most useful in play – within the adventure, at the point of contact.

No, they need to be in a relational database, or a text file, or an indexed ledger, or something, so that you don’t have to go searching for them when the next time comes around.

In theory, the database is the ideal solution, because it permits organization by all sorts of different criteria – “show me all policemen”, for example. But there are practical problems – trust me when I state that minor structural changes to a database can have a HUGE impact on the functionality and storage space required.

In practice, a website with hyperlinks on one or more lists is equally functional – give each NPC their own page, make a page on which all NPCs who share an important characteristic are listed (“Policemen”), link the names to the individual pages. But this is a LOT of work for anyone who has to do it manually, or who doesn’t know how to code a web page.

Almost as good is a loose-leaf binder in which pages can be added or removed to keep them in alphabetical sequence, and a page (digital is best) which indexes the contents various ways – a trivially simple spreadsheet, for example. Why? Because the spreadsheet can be sorted, so you can combine all your lists into one.

There are other solutions, too, each with their own advantages and limitations.

What all these have in common are three traits: they are extensible, meaning that you can add and remove information from an entry; they are extendable, meaning that it’s easy to add more entries; and they are searchable, meaning that it’s easy to find the one entry that you want when you have a hundred or more.

So, let’s assume that you have that sorted, and move on to the question of consistency from depth vs superficiality.

Anarchic Depth

Anarchic depth simply means basing the next appearance of the NPC on the last one, and substituting new items as necessary – if they got used last time. So, if an interest was on display somehow in their previous appearance, you should have the NPC doing something different-but-related next time they are encountered. On the other hand, if the subject didn’t come up, you can simply repeat the characterization content the next time around.

This has an important function: it groups all the “interests” together, it groups all the “opinions” together, it builds up a wardrobe, all simply by listing each item sequentially. That’s hard to do with a manual document (you have to intentionally leave room) but easy to do with an electronic format.

Which means that you have two sources of inspiration available for a third appearance, three for a fourth, and so on.

This is THE fastest way to prepare an NPC for an encounter. But it represents only a minimal protection against inconsistency.

To a certain extent, that’s all right; humans are inconsistent, and complex, and sometimes contradictory. But there are limits, and every contradiction makes it that much harder to extract rational foundations from the character.

For that reason, I would only employ this approach for an NPC making three or four appearances, maximum. Thereafter, I would turn to the solution below.

Organization

Items 4-7, and maybe 3, all have the virtue of inspiring the question of “why is the character this way?” The more you dig into the psychology of the character, the more you can use the results to generate more entries within the ‘direct interface’ items with maximum consistency.

On top of that, there are other items that you can use as starting points – Education, Marital Status, and Occupation all come to mind.

If you are looking for them, you can often eventually find common answers to the “why” questions.

If you were to draw a diagram connecting these “why” answers, it would resemble a tree.

The problem is that it can take a good hour or more to create enough character history to resolve all those why? questions in a rational and coherent manner – and 99% of the time, 99% of that work is wasted effort, in terms of the PCs (or the players) becoming aware of it. Only if the character keeps recurring can little bits and pieces build up into a larger picture.

So the real problem is one of matching degree of effort with needs. That becomes easy when you realize that you don’t have to do it all at once. So long as you documented where you were up to, last time you worked on the character, it’s relatively easy to pick up where you left off.

I work on a 1:5:1 ratio, per appearance after the first.

That’s 1 minute of assimilating “where I was up to”, 5 minutes of digging deeper, and 1 minute of documenting. I might not need all that time, but if I make that amount of room in my schedule of game prep, I can be confident of having enough time to do all I need to.

In order to squeeze all the results from the 5 minutes of deep thought into just 1 minute of documentation, it’s necessary to summarize and synopsize extensively, and even to generalize a little bit.

That’s useful in this context because the next time you approach this character, the odds of you following the exact line of thought that you had running at the time you last worked on it are remote-to-nonexistent. The compression necessary to pack 5 minutes thought into one minute of documentation means that a merely similar line of thought is deemed acceptable.

The system works because by the time you have enough material synopsized that it takes you more than a minute to comprehend it, you should really be spending more than 5 minutes extending the character. It keeps your efforts proportionate with your needs.

The two minutes of lost time are a small price to pay for that.

Rite Of Passage

There’s one experience that used to be common to almost every GM out there – the party being betrayed by one of its members and the GM expected to make sense out of the situation before it killed the campaign.

It often started, in the AD&D days, with the Thief in the party pick-pocketing one of the other members, or stealing goodies from their packs, or snatching the occasional goody before the other party members got to divvy everything up.

Often, alignment conflicts were used in attempts to justify these conflicts.

Calling the class a “Thief” didn’t help, either. Things only got worse when there was a suspected Assassin in the party – any time a player wouldn’t specify what character class he was, or seemed to come up short in effectiveness relative to expectations, paranoia would start, and quickly get out of hand.

So common were these events that they were almost considered a “rite of passage” that every GM had to go through.

The Thief’s Treachery

I had two brushes with this phenomenon back in my early days as a GM. On the first occasion, it was a straightforward case of the Thief getting greedy and sneaking off to ‘reapportion’ loot while the others recovered after their last battle.

Because he was good at hiding in shadows and seeing in the dark, he got away with this for quite a while, even while suspicions were growing.

Finally, one time while the party rested after a battle, the mage (a simple “magic user” in those days) used his abilities to scry the thief’s activities – resulting in an image in the crystal ball that was all black, because the thief didn’t need a light source. Calling on one of the other PCs – one who had ultravision – solved that problem and ensured that the Thief got a hostile reception after his little expedition.

His claims that he was “just playing his character” didn’t go over with the other players. Result: one dead thief, and one player walking away from the game table for good with a justifiable grievance.

As outcomes go, this one was far from satisfactory.

The Mage’s Gambit

The second time was when a quite different mage (different player, same campaign) paid a low-level thief to extract a valuable item from the backpack of another PC and place it in the Thief’s pack.

The mage was True Neutral, and thought that both the Thief and the Paladin were cramping his style with their respective alignment-based restrictions and conflicts.

His solution was to employ an inter-party conflict to remove them both. Unfortunately, the low-level thief got caught, and spilled his guts to the Paladin, who then declared a holy war on the Mage.

The Mage was operated by a relatively experienced player compared to the rest of the party (or the GM, for that matter) and took the amputation of his character’s hands at the armpits in stride, as though this sort of outcome was the way the game was supposed to be played.

Lessons Learned

In those olden days, a party was a random assemblage of characters, a genuinely motley crew if ever you had seen one. Getting them to work together for any reason was always the first challenge that a GM faced; there was even a saying at the games store (Sydney only had one at the time), “You can lead a PC to the Inn but can’t make him drink”, specifically addressing this phenomenon.

My solution was to incorporate such motivation for cooperation either into the campaign background or the player’s backgrounds. It didn’t matter whether the motivation was mutual survival, or profit, or even different for each PC, so long as they had a reason to overlook each other’s foibles and avoid beating each other’s brains in – or giving the others just cause for doing so.

If you look over my gaming history, you might think that my D&D days were pretty lean in between my original D&D campaign (1981-1984) and Fumanor: The Last Deity campaign in 2000. That’s a long 16-year gap – even with a lot of Superhero and Shared Reality (TORG) campaigns to fill it.

There were a few attempts in between to start new AD&D campaigns, but the players simply weren’t available / interested at the time. Some of those notes and ideas were discarded, others eventually made their way into either the Fumanor or Rings Of Time campaigns.

Some of the discarded material was explicitly aimed at this phenomenon. Specifically, I realized the degree of influence the class name was able to exert over the way characters were perceived, both by their owners and by the other players. In other words, if I renamed the class and perhaps made one or two minor tweaks to class abilities, I could rename “Thief” to “Spy” or “Explorer” or “Scout” and completely change the way everyone thought about these characters with virtually no alteration to the game mechanics or class descriptions.

When Fumanor finally got off the ground, it was with players who were extremely insistent that inter-party conflicts were not wanted and would not be tolerated, so there was no need to pursue these changes further.

Eventually, D&D discarded the “Thief” title in favor of still another title, “Rogue”, so the authors appear to have learned the same lesson. Furthermore, variations on the class (in the form of Prestige Classes) began appearing in various supplements – with names like “Scout” and “Explorer”. And “Assassin”, the other class-based cause of angst, was quietly dropped from the line-up.

I felt that this discarded an essential piece of the flavor of ‘old’ D&D without adequate cause, and so was amenable when the opportunity came to create Assassin’s Amulet, which restored the class – albeit with a LOT of tweaking.

There’s Only Ever One First Time

But none of this exists in isolation. I can never fully divorce my experience from any situation that I might contemplate, not with any certainty. That’s what makes it so hard for me to write articles pitched at the beginner.

It’s my suspicion that GMs still have to endure some variation on the rite of passage described, in which a collection of independent PCs turn on each other for short-term gain or fidelity to a concept that intrudes upon the foundations upon which roleplaying games are built.

It won’t be the party “Thief” stealing from the party any more, but betraying a fellow PC for personal gain is still a story that is told, I’ll wager.

It doesn’t have to be that way, but GMs won’t avoid it without a clear plan in place.

Possible Solutions

I have a baker’s-dozen-plus-one solutions to the problem. More, if the problem exists at a player level and not a character level, but I’m framing this part of the conversation purely about the in-game. Some work well, some have specific problems that will need to be solved, some can be combined with other solutions, and so don’t have to be the sole response. Some have already been mentioned – which will make discussion of them fairly brief.

1. All Thieves

One of the easiest solutions to think of, mandating that every party member be a thief (in combination with some other class, perhaps) permits them all to be members of a single Guild which sets the rules for “social” interaction between it’s members. If the GM is prepared to invest deep thinking into the social structure and practices of a Thief’s Guild, and into how various combinations would work, this can be a viable solution.

The trickiest part is ensuring that the Guild is a diverse agency with room for many different kinds of characters within it’s tent. How do magic-using Thieves differ from Fighter-thieves? How might the Paladin-thief combination work? How do relationships between the different faiths work within the Guild – does everyone have one God or is more diversity possible?

The most difficult part (as opposed to the trickiest) will be convincing all your players that they should play varieties of thief. My suggestion: (a) Make sure everyone knows that the campaign requires all PCs to be members of a particular thief’s guild; (b) Create hybrids of all the non-thief characters (some thief abilities, some not), naming them “Guild Clerics”, “Guild Enforcers”, “Guild Mages”, and so on (Guild Druids? Why Not?); and (c) inform the players that because of (a), the only primary character classes available are these hybrid classes.

This leaves only one problem: The “Guild Thief” class and the implied game balance issues. If the other classes have their progress slowed by learning non-thieving skills, the “Guild Thief” will have a clear advantage; If the other classes get thief abilities as well as their normal abilities, the “Guild Thief” will be at a clear disadvantage.

Solving this problem – and not making the hybrid character classes too weak relative to ordinary Clerics, Fighters, etc – are the reason why the design of these hybrids will be a very delicate task.

A related problem that may have heavy impact is the question of racial restrictions. Is it credible that the whole gamut of PC race-and-class combinations can be represented within this one Thief’s Guild? Every restriction risks treading on the toes of some player who has his heart set on running a Half-Hafling or whatever. So this will also require heavy thought.

Boy, from what seemed such a simple and obvious solution, the complications are sure coming thick and fast, aren’t they?

2. Alignment Rejection

Another simplistic solution that occurs to most GMs after their first encounter with the problem is to confine PCs to the alignments that the GM thinks capable of working together – which usually means banning Chaotic Evil, Chaotic Neutral, and Evil Neutral characters from the game. Some may add “Lawful Good” to that list if the problem involved a conflict between a Holier-than-thou PC and a more casual character.

This solution has a high likelihood of at least superficial success, at least initially. The problems that result are subtle, and slow-acting – but poisonous to the campaign, and the GM’s rep, just the same.

This is a case of the GM telling players what they can and can’t do, confining the PCs to choices that the GM thinks he can cope with, rather than the GM actually solving the cause of the problem – inter-party conflict.

With most small children, telling them they aren’t allowed to do something only makes them more eagerly inclined to try it out, perhaps on the sly. Most players aren’t small children, but the parallels in childish behavior occur nevertheless. Sooner or later, many of these players will sit at a more “liberal” table, and – taking the option of exploring terra incognita, will play a character of alignment from the “forbidden” list.

Some won’t enjoy the experience. The notion of having to protect yourself as much from the other players as from overt enemies is often uncomfortable – though it can be good training for prospering (or at least surviving) games of political intrigue. Those players aren’t the problem; they will return, convinced that you had it right with the ban.

Others will find the experience liberating. There’s always something attractive in being able to run hog wild, doing anything you like. No more moral hand-wringing or angst-filled logical justification required – just do it because you feel like doing it. Almost everyone will admit to finding something at least a little desirable in that proposition – though one person’s choice of desired form of “running wild” may vary dramatically relative to another’s. There are those for whom going fishing when they should be working or worshiping is the height of rebellion!

These are the players who will return to your table critical of your past decision, and by extension, critically-appraising of all your other decisions. At the very least, you will be seen as a milquetoast who doesn’t deserve to sit behind the screen. From that moment on, the fuse on a more permanent bust-up has been lit – but no-one knows how long that fuse is.

This solution is playing with nitro. Eventually, it will go boom.

3. All Evil

GMs aren’t immune to the seductive powers of a walk on the Dark Side, either. The notion that everyone is in the same boat and therefore should know what to expect makes this an attractive, if occasional solution.

Even I have conceded at least once (because it worked to enhance the main story of the campaign) – that was in my Shards Of Divinity campaign.

When I took a close look at the requirements, though, I found that more work was needed before the solution was viable. I ended up needing to redefine the different alignments for the campaign; I included details of the results in part 5 of my series on alignment, Dark Shadows (if interested in why that seemed necessary, and the logic behind the definitions, a lot of it is discussed between-the-lines of parts 2 and 3 of the series, and part 1 is a necessary preamble by a guest author).

Make no mistake, you can run an “evil campaign” using the standard rules – others have done so – but there will be more rocky patches along the way.

4. Alignment Redefinition

The definitions of alignment in the various players handbooks / core rulebooks are very puritanical, when you get right down to it, and not only license in-party obnoxious behavior and conflict, they actually incite it. Maybe the solution you would prefer would be to redefine the alignments completely, focusing on motivations and not on behavioral restrictions. After all, if a deed is ‘unthinkable’ by characters of that alignment, you’ve pretty much made that deed ‘illegal’ for that alignment, anyway.

Alignments should not be codes of behavior, holy writ to which PCs pledge their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. They should be practical guides to philosophies and behaviors – and a key element of that should be how they can get along with, and work alongside, characters of other alignments, even polar opposites. At the bottom of such descriptions, there might be a subsection “Extremists of this alignment” followed by the existing, ‘official’ descriptions.

As an example,

Lawful Good characters care for others; they subscribe to the philosophy that charity is good, within the limits of what you can afford, that what comes around goes around, that everyone is served by clear and sensible laws that are enforced for all, regardless of rank or position. They generally like helping others, it makes them feel good about themselves. They dislike rationalizing breaches of law or of expected social behavior, though they can do so if they have to. They think that Lawful Neutral characters lack the courage of their convictions, and try to be a good example to them. They find Lawful Evil characters distasteful, but at least respect that they admit that they find it necessary to “look after Number One” first and foremost. Because they have to live in the real world, they will listen respectfully to a reasonable argument in favor of needing exceptions to broad laws. They see Neutral Good characters as meaning well, but needing organization and direction. Chaotic Good characters also receive the ‘mean well’ label, but are anarchic to the point of disruption, and often lazy or inclined to fritter away their time and capacities; these characters need to be confined to simple tasks and monitored closely and regularly.

          … and so on.

That’s a fair amount of work, and it’s always possible that you will make some grievous error in the process. Some players won’t like that you’ve monkeyed with the rules at all, and to some extent they have a point – but I don’t want to get distracted with that conversation at the moment. You always have to question whether or not it’s worth all the effort for a problem that comes up so infrequently – no matter how catastrophic it might be when it does manifest?

5. Jobz 4 The Boyz

I’ve already touched on the problem of class titles implying a certain pattern of behavior. It’s not enough to add a line, “Thieves are not normally kleptomaniacs, they are skilled professionals or skilled-professionals-in-training” to the official class descriptions; while that might mitigate casual breaches of respect for the property of another PC, it’s only a band-aid on the problem. Those tend to be the breaches that can be papered over, anyway.

But applying a different job title can bring about more profound changes in conception and application, concept and behavior. Bilbo Baggins undoubtedly thought the Dwarves entirely justified in employing a burglar to help them regain their treasures, and no doubt considered his many missed meals in their company to be a “noble sacrifice”.

Or perhaps you might sell your thief-playing player on the concept of basing his performance on Whoopi Goldberg in “Burglar”.

You see, what you are really doing is defining a role within the team for the PC to fill – with the promise (and implied threat) that there will be loot and experience if the PC does so.

6. Dominant Leader (NPC)

GMs can often get away with doing things through NPC proxies that would never be acceptable if presented as ultimatums to players. I have heard of some GMs using this principle to curb undesirable PC behavior through the assigning of a team Mentor who will ‘lead’ the team for a period of time (defined in character levels).

If you go down this route, I recommend some house rules to ensure that the Mentor gets listened to – perhaps only 1/3 of the experience the characters earn comes from the encounter itself, the remaining 2/3 come from lessons provided by the Mentor and discussions of alternative strategies moderated by the Mentor afterwards – points that the Mentor can withhold if he doesn’t consider them earned.

When the Mentor considers the PCs ready, he will cut them loose – a time defined by his resuming the relationship with his own Mentor. This might also involve handing the PCs off to a new, still higher-level Mentor as “journeymen”, who get half the xp outright and the other half from the Mentor.

After more levels gained, the PCs become “senior” or “leading” journeymen, are handed off to a new Master, and get 2/3 of their xp up front. This Master acts more as a guide and sounding board – and part of each PCs requirements for getting their xp is to satisfactorily nurture and protect a new set of Novices through their first X levels…

This makes adventuring a subculture, recognized and with its own policies, procedures, and practices.

I’ve never tried this approach, though I came close with the adventurer social class and associated society in Fumanor (in a nutshell: The King credited Adventurers with having saved the Kingdom from destruction, and so granted their “profession” official – and taxable – recognition, and insisting that an appropriate bureaucracy be established to oversee sanctioned adventuring activities by any citizen of the Kingdom).

So I can’t report on how successful or not it might be. I suspect that there would be a clear need to roleplay the interactions with the Mentor (who might or might not be with his charges in the field). You would need that characterization “buffer” between GM dictates and the awarding of experience to make this solution viable.

7. Dominant Leader (PC)

This is a similar idea to the previous one, but it requires more substantial tinkering with the rules. The idea is that with a group of relatively inexperienced players, you bring in a battle-scarred veteran player to assist and guide them. To explain the disparity between the player’s experience levels as it manifests in-game, you grant the veteran additional character levels that makes him a dominant leader for the party.

It is necessary that the experienced player be one with the “right” attitude and philosophy regarding inter-team conflicts, for this to work.

But there is a trade-off – if encounters factor in the “leader’s” abilities, they will probably be too dangerous for the novice players, and if they are appropriate for the novices, the “leader” means that they will win easily. The whole foundation of the xp system breaks down if there is enough disparity in character levels to make a difference.

There are two option that I can suggest from my writings here at Campaign Mastery:

– A Different Experience: A variation on the D&D 3.x Experience Points System
  (be sure to read the comments, which contain additional explanations and corrections); and,

– Objective-Oriented Experience Points
  – though it might require some tweaking. Comparing the amount of xp a (low-level) character gets to the amount the higher-level would get from the same encounter, and applying the ratio, is one answer – but a simpler one is to define them as having different missions. That means that the high-level character will earn one character level for successfully carrying his proteges through to Xth level (whatever the trigger is for ‘handing them on’).

My natural breakdown would be in 5-level bands, meaning that between 16th and 20th levels, characters would be on their own – in a 3.x system – and expected to be training senior journeymen that they have received from some other Master. That gives the three bands – apprentice, journeyman, leading journeyman – as levels 1-5, 6-10, and 11-15, respectively.

8. Forbidden Words

Some GMs think they can solve the problem by banning any discussion of alignment at the table. The only guide to someone’s alignment would be from the actions they were seen to take and the way they described their character’s reactions. This ban would exist for the GM, too, though he can declare a time-out from the rules to discuss something important that might need the forbidden words.

I’m afraid that this solutions strikes me as wishful thinking, fine in theory but impossible to enforce. You would be better off scrapping alignment altogether, as guest author Gary Stahl did in part one of the alignment series referred to previously – An Unneccessary Evil?.

Note that I don’t actually advocate doing so, though Gary raised some good points; Parts 2 and 3 of the series detail my response and an alternative proposal. Gary responded to my proposal in the comments, finding that our ideas had more in common than he had expected.

9. The Cut-purse Warning

Some GMs take the Mos Eisley approach: “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy”. A PC can’t steal something an NPC has already misappropriated, in other words, and the threat of NPC ‘appropriations’, given to the players, should be enough for them to take extraordinary precautions – and that in turn makes it harder for a PC to ‘privately appropriate’ anything.

Therefore, runs the theory, problem solved.

There’s a lot to like about this approach. It’s simple, it promises plenty of game-play throughout the campaign, it seems reasonably functional (at least at lower levels)…

But I have an abiding suspicion of any solution that challenges a PC to ‘have a go’ at something you don’t want them to do. It may delay the inevitable, but the bust-up when the Thief thinks he finally has a big enough advantage to give it a try will only be the bigger for it, because the sense of betrayal of loyalty will be bigger.

But it’s a very nice answer – in theory.

10. Mission: Improbable

The characters are all experts, brought together for a common goal, and required to set aside any differences in order to achieve it. That’s the Mission: Impossible answer, and it works a treat – especially when the underlying genre of the campaign supports the concept. Not so much, the rest of the time.

For Pulp and Superhero campaigns? No problem. D&D? With good characters, no problem. With anyone else? I’m not so sure about that one.

11. You Bet Your Life

You can, perhaps, enhance your chances of success by presenting the PCs with a direct threat to everyone’s survival. My experience is that the more directly the PCs are threatened and can act against the threat, the more effective this approach is.

To show why, let’s look at the quartet of possible combinations.

– The threat is direct and the PCs can take immediate action: The ideal form of this scenario, it implies that the PCs are too busy to in-fight, and that if they do in-fight, they could lose it all – which makes the price of party infighting too high to be countenanced.

– The threat is distant and the PCs can take immediate action……but why would they bother? The threat is too remote to motivate them to do anything more than be “themselves” – which is when conflicts come into prominence between them. This, unfortunately, is the way many people see the threat of climate change. My personal take on that issue: even if it is unproven, the dangers posed by climate change are serious enough that action is required now, and the politicians who oppose it are frittering away our window for such action while burying their heads in the sand. The only proof is an increasing incidence of disaster, and that’s unacceptable, so we have to act without waiting for the final, politically-undeniable, proof.

– The threat is direct but it’s not obvious what the PCs can do about it: This is a recipe for despair, for the abandonment of principles and choosing a “go out with a bang” approach. It’s not a good choice for solving the problem, like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.

– The threat is distant and it’s not obvious what the PCs can do about it, anyway: And you thought option #3 was bad? This is incomparably worse, to such an extent that you might as well not have the threat in the first place.

Oh dear – that’s all four possible combinations, and only one of them actually promises to even help solve the problem.

But that one works so well that you can even discard the “Elite Force” and have the PCs be ordinary people, who might normally oppose each other violently, but who have to set their animosity aside to confound the common threat. Which is why this item stands alone, separated from #10.

But there’s another, more subtle, problem with this solution: it’s hard to make imminent threats feel distinctive, and so this solution is really more of a holding pattern that buys you time – one whole campaign’s worth – to come up with a better solution.

12. Common Cause – CharGen

Of course, it doesn’t need to be a catastrophic threat to life and limb; you could try giving the PCs common cause as the basis of your campaign. That might be enough.

There are three ways of approaching this; the first one is to mandate one during character creation, telling the players just enough that they can design characters to fit in with the desired circumstances. For example, a PC who wants to play a thief in a very moral campaign in which several PCs are law-enforcement types might be a snitch – sorry, a police informant. The implication is that this particular PC keeps himself out of trouble by selling information to the Police and very definitely not getting them off-side, say by stealing from one of them.

13. Common Cause – Campaign

The second choice is to explicitly define a common cause in the campaign briefing. The difference is in how much the players know about the cause prior to generating characters. Whether you realized it or not, in advance, this actually results in a slightly watered-down form of Elite Force, because the players will shape their character construction to the ‘common cause’.

14. Common Cause – In Play

The last choice is to spring the common cause on the players without warning. You can even give them some quite ordinary adventures to enable them to bond with the game setting before bringing down the curtain on what they thought the campaign would be about – though it’s probably better if you incorporate some vague hints along the way.

You know what all these solutions have in common? None of them are certain to work. Some offer greater security than others, but none provides an iron-clad surety. Not even #11 provides that level of certainty, because players are independent entities to the GM. One PC, for example, may attempt to sell out the rest to the enemy (if there is one), or to save themselves at the expense of the others, or the expense of the overall victory. Holding off the death of everything long enough for them to die at a ripe old age might be a perfectly viable solution – but one that puts inter-party conflict right back onto the agenda.

Horses For Courses

The section title is Australian slang for “making the right choice for the situation”. Different groups will respond in individual ways to any of the solutions offered; none of them are universal panacea. That means that it’s up to the GM to decide what solution his or her group will best respond to.

If you don’t know that there’s going to be a problem, the best course of action is to assume that there won’t be one – unless one of these solutions adds to the richness and depth of the campaign story that you want to tell, of course.

One of the biggest mistakes that a GM can make is blindly applying specific lessons learned from one campaign to one with completely different players. That doesn’t mean that you can’t be wary, shouldn’t learn from the past and make adjustments to improve your ability behind the screen, but it does mean that every campaign starts from zero. You can’t carry grudges or prejudice from one campaign to another.

It’s a matter of trust.

Attribution

This article was primarily inspired by a story published by SBS, one of Australia’s TV Channels, on their website, who in turn was republishing it from The Conversation, another website, under a Creative Commons license.

Read the SBS story, Read the Original story by Julian Matthews, a Research Officer from the Cognition Neurology Lab at Monash University, Australia.

It should not be inferred that any of these organizations endorse this usage or this article.

Caution: The following may treat opinion as fact. Read it and make up your own minds.

The GM’s Burden

One of the hardest things to do in modern society is identify Fake News and understand how to process it in order to get to the truth.

it’s something that we have to do, despite this difficulty; we can’t represent society – any society – faithfully if we aren’t aware of the way our brains process bad data (and mistake it for good).

Of course, we’re human, too, and as entitled to our personal beliefs and biases as anyone else. But when we pick up dice, we have to rise above those beliefs and play it straight, right down the line.

You can’t make all the Republicans villains, or all the Democrats empty-headed dreamers, or all the anyone anything. You need to create and run individuals, not stereotypes, and if those individuals happen to agree with a political party or agenda that you personally disapprove of, you can’t let that influence how you play them.

And that’s hard. But that’s part of the burden of being a GM.

You might be thinking, “I don’t have to worry about that – I run a Fantasy Campaign in the fictional world of Zummuhlwahr” or wherever. Sorry, but you’re wrong, for four reasons:

• You have to live in the real world, just like the rest of us.
• Your players live in the real world, too, and these problems color their perceptions. In order to connect with them properly, the society and philosophy of your game worlds will have to be something they can relate to.
• You may want to seek inspiration in the headlines of the day, suitably transposed and translated into your campaign, of course. After all, the essential themes that they represent remain as valid as ever.
• Finally, there are traditional stereotypes the depiction of non-human races with roots in social and political attitudes from the real world that you can either embrace or reject, for your game, but which you should at least be aware of.

That last point may need a little expansion. Many depictions of Elves treat them as some variation on Democrats and Greens, environmentally “attuned” with an “affinity” for living things. Dwarves, in contrast, are belligerent, warlike, hot-tempered, but not without their virtues – which is how many “open-minded” Democrats would describe “Moderate Republicans”.

My first reaction to such stereotypes is looking for ways to subvert and negate them. Infusions of Asian martial arts into the Elves? Why Not? Having Dwarves embrace a socialist society which contrasts strongly with the individualistic greed-oriented capitalism that is more often attributed to their national character? Again, why not?

Alternatively, you could choose to embrace the cliches and – by virtue of recognizing the source – extend them with other elements of the modern incarnations of those political/social visions. Making Dwarves ultra-religious, for example.

Ultimately, it all comes down to this: in order to represent the world to the players (any world), you first have to understand it – and the only one that we have to use as a prototype, a template, and a common standard is the one that we live in. Understanding the “Real World” and the complex forces that interplay within it to shape the events that we experience is therefore essential to understanding and delivering imaginary worlds to your audience, the players.

And remember – the more grains of truth you can isolate, the easier you’ll be able to construct plausible lies around them in your game – an important GMing skill (see The Hierarchy Of Deceit: How and when to lie to your players).

Sources Of Fake News

There are seven sources – or perhaps ’causes’ might be a better term – of Fake News:

1. Insecurity & Paranoia
2. Big-noting
3. Attack
4. Spin
5. Malvertising
6. Bias
7. Mental Illness

1. Insecurity & Paranoia

When people are afraid of something, they tend to share stories that justify that fear in hopes of creating a call to action that will remove the subject of the fear or otherwise mitigate the fear. Popular culture and modern society contains numerous examples suggesting that the correct response to fear is to minimize or downgrade it, because the situation is almost always not as bad as it seems. Hence, when we are afraid of something, one of our first responses is to share that fear in hopes that others will tell us that we are sane to experience that fear under the circumstances.

If the response is “yes, that is something to fear,” we experience relief from our secondary concerns about credibility and rationality. If the response is “no, it’s not that bad,” we experience some mitigation of the driving fear reaction itself. Either way, sharing brings relief in some measure, which is often enough that we can take reasonable and rational action, whereas we might previously have been paralyzed.

Paranoia, in this context, can be considered fear that cannot be mitigated in this way because it has no rational foundation, and this irrationality disrupts the rational interpretation of contradictions to that foundation. It starts with the assumption that the fear is rational, and rationalizes every statement and experience to conform with this view of reality.

2. Big-noting

Some people make up stories to call attention to themselves or make themselves seem more important. The need for respect from our peers is a driving force for us all, though it might be more or less important than other drivers and motivators in the case of some people.

In more extreme cases, this can become an unhealthy narcissism. But even before that extreme is reached, some people can’t help reinventing their lives. In some cases, these distortions are of little consequence, and are shrugged off as a peculiarity of the individual, such as the perception that a particular sporting team are cheats or that another such team are the best on the planet for all sorts of reasons (which may not include their actual performance in any given calendar year). In other cases, they reach the extreme of impeding cognizance – we think something is so, and convince ourselves that there is no other possible explanation, no matter how rational or irrational the original thought was.

Still more serious is when this narcissism prompts actions that we collectively consider irrational, such as self-harm or Munchausen’s Syndrome By Proxy, in which we harm someone so that they can be cared for/cured by the individual who caused the harm. This, in turn, is not dissimilar to Firemen who start fires so that they can put them out, and to a relatively new condition, Munchausen by Internet.

But the most benign manifestation (in terms of mental health) is telling a tall tale to make yourself seem more important. The problem is that those receiving this communication have no way of knowing, in isolation, that this is a Tall Tale.

3. Attack

Stepping things up a notch is deliberate deception for effect. Some can convince themselves that the end justifies the means; others are more amoral and simply spread a fictitious story because they are paid to do so, in one way or another.

These are always an act of attack upon something or someone, and are predicated on the rational response to that something or someone when viewed in the light of the attack’s distorted reality, favors the attacker and/or a cause that they support.

This is a falsehood that is spread by an agent for the effect of diminishing the target, or some supporter of the target (real or alleged). A prime example described in a past article here at Campaign Mastery is the Children Overboard scandal, detailed in Incredible Truth and Improbable Stories: Oratory in an RPG.

4. Spin

When such mendacity is not use to attack another, but is instead used to justify or reinterpret some event or action, it is called “Spin”, though it is far more malign than that term implies.

Ordinary Spin consists of an expression of bias in the analysis or interpretation of events. The agent is simply relaying their, or their organization’s, understanding.

Malignant Spin transcends this practice, taking it to levels of willful falsehood.

5. Malvertising

Something that I hate is advertising pretending to be news. So much so that I dedicated an entire article to analyzing the phenomenon, Ethics For Sale? – The Role of Native Advertising.

I have to be clear, here – I have no problem with advertising being presented as part of the news service, provided that the ethical structure of the service is not affected and the primary purpose is to actually provide news. If Amazon starts dealing in Real Estate or Funerals, for example, that’s going to have a significant impact on (respectively) a key part of the economy and a service sector that we will all need to rely on eventually. That’s news, and it doesn’t matter that it advertises Amazon at the same time – or even that Amazon may have paid for the story to be covered by the news media in question.

Similarly, I have no problem with advertisers who sponsor links within my articles from time to time, or who provide their own articles of acceptable standard (something very few seem capable of). Part of that ‘standard’ is that the article be of interest and value to readers of the site, and that it be relevant to our subject (table-top role-playing games and how to run them better). I can, and have, rejected articles that don’t fit – and rewritten others virtually completely to make them acceptable.

The line gets crossed when the sponsorship becomes more important than the ethical standards of the publisher, or when the purpose is simply to deliver the advertising, or when the service being advertised is potentially inimical to the reader. I once nixed an article here at Campaign Mastery because the website being advertised led to malware. If I’d had the appropriate contacts, I would have reported them.

My term for advertising that crosses that line is “Malvertising”. It’s existence can be traced all the way back to newspaper ads in the 19th century spruiking tonics and health treatments of no or dubious medical value – the legendary “Snake Oil”.

6. Bias

Bias is a filter and translator for impressions and interpretations. As I said earlier, this can be called ‘spin’ when the bias is that of the person reporting the story, sometimes referred to as the ‘agent’ responsible. But that’s not the only source of bias.

The person generating the story has their interpretation of events – that’s spin. Additional spin might also be present to show their employer in a better light. If so, that’s part of the story, too.

The reporter might have a sympathetic bias, or an opposing one. They aren’t supposed to let that influence their journalism, except when the material is clearly labeled ‘opinion’, but to some extent it can be impossible to avoid. The only solution is to declare any such bias – but that often makes the bias seem more significant and more relevant than it actually is, so such declarations are increasingly rare.

The editors (and there can be a whole infrastructure of them) will have their own bias or biases; seniority makes these more and more difficult to ignore.

Readers can have their biases, too, and most publications make at least some effort to cater to those perspectives as a matter of policy (which is why this item is present at this level, even though it violates the obvious narrative chain of production).

At the second-highest rung, we have government policies and legal restrictions. Violating these almost always has a consequence of some sort, something that only explicit protections (Free Speech), and (to a lesser extent) a demonstration of clear Public Interest being served by the publication of the story can overcome. However, most governments can’t afford to antagonize the press, so the latter can get away with a lot more than smaller players like you and me. Breach these and you risk jail time (or worse in some jurisdictions). The chances of that are a lot smaller with a top-notch defender and your employer in your corner – which is why this isn’t the top tier.

Other editorial policies dictated by the owner / senior management (and, shamefully, sometimes the sponsors / advertisers) occupy the very top rung of the ladder. Breach these and expect to be called to the carpet – at the very least. More often than not, a willful breach will terminate employment. Especially egregious breaches may result in industry-wide black-balls.

And, having finished this litany, you might be wondering if it’s possible for any story to be free of bias! Even publishing the train timetables can be considered an expression of bias – by the time those reacting to that publication, or looking for something on which to hang a reaction on, have responded. “It clearly shows a bias against the auto industry and in favor of public transport, with their strong union!” might well be the response….

That very ubiquity demonstrates the need to be able to set aside partisan blinders – not just for GMs, but for everyone.

7. Mental Illness

If your view of the world is delusional, and insufficiently coherent to be considered simple paranoia, any expressions of that view are clearly going to reflect your mental dissaray.

This type of communication is exceedingly rare unless you apply inappropriate definitions – for example, pro-religious sentiments could be mis-characterized as the products of insanity by an atheist who has no respect for others or for institutions. In my book, a sincere belief that I don’t share is a bias at worst – and when the purpose of spreading the message is positive, I take it in the sentiment it was given, like most people.

But I do find it interesting that a progressive analysis of the causes of False News could end with a discussion of what might well be the most benign of all the forms that it can take.

I Read The News Today, Oh Boy…

Okay, so some piece of news is received, be it from television, a friend, social media, or the printed word. If that was all that happened, all this would be of trivial importance.

It isn’t, and people have known that since the word propaganda was coined in 1622 – but it predates even that; the moralistic fictions of Ancient Greece were intended to inculcate adherence to the ‘morality’ of the time.

When we receive a piece of communication, we attempt to fit it into our own views of the world.

If it fits, we are prone to accept it at face value, and will resist attempts to contradict it. That’s why Spin can be used as a defense against getting caught in various compromising situations! Proving a statement that accords with our world-views to be false is a far more challenging burden to meet.

If it doesn’t fit, we are prone to label it as false, regardless of any corroborating evidence that may be provided. If the validity of that evidence can be challenged, or the connection between facts and analysis disputed, the message is promptly rejected, no matter how genuinely accurate it might be.

These initial reactions bring our personal biases into play, providing a context in which the message content is appraised.

Digesting the message

Most messages consist of two or more pieces, and those have to be digested separately – but usually aren’t.

The most fundamental content of a message is factual. That means that it can be proven or contradicted by direct investigation by the reader, if he has access to the appropriate equipment – no need to get anyone else’s opinion.

Factual content is generally boring to most people without a direct interest in the subject. What’s more, most people aren’t readily equipped to discern the relevance of the facts presented.

So that brings in the second piece – interpretation and/or analysis, in which the writer explains the significance of the factual content (If there’s no factual content, it’s an opinion).

The presentation of factual content is often colored by the interpretation that the provider has placed on it. Scales on a diagram, selective reporting limits, even the deliberate inclusion of easily-misinterpreted data, all can be used for this purpose. In his own mind, the person preparing the presentation is simply editing it to highlight the point that they want to be made, not distorting the facts.

Such distortions are carried along with the factual ‘payload’ received and digested. This is a third element of content, and even seasoned journalists can get caught by it.

The fourth type of content is logical deduction or narrative. This masquerades as being as reliable as factual content, but normally rests on assumptions that are shaped or dictated by the interpretation / analysis, and either provides a ‘bridge” between the (now–possibly-distorted) factual content and the interpretation, or is treated as factual content and used to justify further interpretation. The assumptions frequently relate to the relationship between different pieces of factual content or previous interpretation that is treated as factual content (and may not even be cited).

Because of it’s usage, this content is carried with the interpretation.

Finally, there may or may not be a headline, to focus on the interpretation, and (often) to prejudice the reader, and sensationalize the communication as much as possible. That includes the use of section and subsection titles – they focus the reader’s attention, separate one logical construction or message from another, related communication, and direct the reader’s mind, just a little.

Sometimes, they can contain completely unsupported amplifications or distortions of the interpretation. A long time ago, I saw a fictional story (I don’t remember the name) in which the exact same fairly innocuous text was given two different headlines that caused the reader to experience completely different and opposing interpretations of the events described in the text. Headlines help supply context in the mind of the reader – and it usually the headline to which the reader reacts, as described in the preceding section.

Headlines are therefore capable of being a fifth type of content.

Research has even found that just one presentation of a headline was enough to induce or increase a persistent belief in its content. For example, “Donald Trump Sent His Own Plane to Transport 200 Stranded Marines”, based on claims shown to be false, still increased belief in the statement for more than a week if it was believed at all. In other words, if something gets past our skepticism, it not only weakens that skepticism in the direction of related content, it does so for some time to come. Minimal reinforcement or repetition is therefore needed to embed a prejudicial belief in receptive individuals more or less permanently.

Note that soundbites, recordings, and images all purport to be factual content, and relevant factual content at that. I always take such content with a grain of salt – they can all be faked or taken out of context – but, that said, the difficulty and cost of doing so shoots up rapidly. Images are the easiest to fake/edit, sound the next easiest (which is to say, not very), and video the most reliable (which is to say, only somewhat). Still, evidence always makes a report more credible if IT is credible.

So, we digest the message – maybe splitting it up into these constituent parts, but probably not. And, factoring in any predisposition, we decide whether or not we believe it – and if we do, and sometimes when we don’t, we rebroadcast that opinion, either explicitly or implicitly by simply rebroadcasting the message.

The Epidemiology Of Falsehood

And that’s how fake news spreads. Your opinion becomes just another small part of the context of the message for the next recipient.

Studies have shown that the spread of willful misinformation and other forms of deceptive comment fits the profile of the transmission of disease.

If you come into contact with a diseased person, there is a chance that you will catch whatever they’ve got and a chance that you won’t. This is the infection rate. But each victim can pass their illness on to dozens or even hundreds of people, depending on how long they remain infectious, and whether or not the disease kills the sufferer.

Believing a false message is akin to catching a disease – it might be something relatively benign like the common cold or something really deadly like Ebola. If you rebroadcast that message to a hundred people (or more), some of them will likely also believe it – they have ‘caught the disease’. If you are particularly aroused, you may rebroadcast it several times in different media and formats.

If your cognition becomes overwhelmed by too many false messages, it’s like having a compromised immune system with which to fight off future false messages.

The mathematics that they use to predict the spread of a disease following an outbreak turns out to work perfectly well for predicting the spread of a false message, regardless of how you’re passing it on; you ‘expose’ so many people to the disease, its credibility is it’s infection rate, and some people are more receptive to it than others. Counter-measures probably follow, but these may or may be enough to knock out the ‘bug’ if it has taken hold.

This transmission pattern means that it can take a surprisingly small number of believers to spread a falsehood over a receptive population. It can be – and in the olden days of content going viral, it was – just one. Of course, the odds of any communication having significant reach are greatly increased if multiple people ‘come down with it’ at the same time.

Recognizing Fake News

There are significant improvements that can be made to the way we assess messages that will help cut down the spread of fake news. No one strategy will have a substantial impact, but applying these in combination will massively increase your protection against fake news – and earn you a reputation as a smart analyst, one not easily deceived. That in turn can make you an Influencer, more likely to be believed – the social equivalent of a white blood cell hunting down fake news when you encounter it. It also spreads any vulnerabilities that you may have, any chinks in your armor, to those who you influence – so it’s important to take responsibility for what you repeat and exercise appropriate diligence once you start down this path.

1. Source Considerations

As a natural assumption, most people will believe that the person sending the message believes what they are communicating. But some sources are considered more reliable than others, and that assessment plays into the degree of suspicion or credulity which we apply to the message.

This is a default that is dangerous. There’s nothing wrong with treating a message with additional suspicion if it comes from a suspect source – but relaxing your guard because the source is more trusted represents significant risk.

No-one’s completely free of bias, no-one’s completely immune to being deceived by misinformation, no-one is completely selfless, and anyone can make a mistake. You should always start by asking (trusted source) “Could they be wrong? Could they be biased?” or, (mistrusted source) “Could they be right? Could they be biased?”.

2. Separate The Fact From The Analysis

Don’t swallow anything whole. Recognize the five types of content and assess each as independently as possible.

3. Look for distortions in the facts

“Crime is up X%” – or it might be “Traffic accidents are up X%”, or whatever. Unless these measurements are “per capita”, they are inherently distorted by treating a relative number as an absolute. If the population rises by 10%, it’s reasonable to expect that the number of criminals is also up by 10%, and therefore that crime will rise by 10%. Only on a per-capita basis (and sometimes not even then) can you assess such changes.

You also need to keep an eye out for secondary assumptions – if the population rises 5%, but the number of people in a poor economic class increases 25%, is it more likely that crime will rise by 25% or by 5%?

I’ve already mentioned using misleading boundaries on the reporting period – a lot of measurements only continue a trend already established prior to the reporting period. President Trump is notorious for this – taking credit for changes that are simply continuations of existing trends. At best, he should be able to take credit for not getting in the way of these trends. The things to look for aren’t these trends, but changes that can’t be explained as statistical “noise” and that can’t be explained by existing trends.

Another trap to watch out for are graphs to different scales – as a general rule of thumb, we assume that two graphs are of equal significance. Consider the examples below:

The presence of any of these indicators is a strong signal that the facts have been massaged to fit the message by someone. Their absence doesn’t prove that they haven’t been interfered with, though.

More importantly, these give you a foundation for assessing the reliability of the source beyond this one article or report.

4. Multiple Sources

It used to be that if the same story cropped up from multiple sources, it was considered more credible. In fact, that was never completely true; they might all have been getting their facts and primary analysis from the one source.

These days, the gold measure is whether or not the primary or core analysis is consistent across multiple sources with different biases. It doesn’t happen often, because news media have become more partisan, but when it does, it’s a genuine indicator of credibility.

To assess this, you have to be able to identify the bias and spin placed on the interpretation and strip these away from the reports (but don’t throw it away just yet). If Fox news says something complimentary about a Democrat, it’s more likely to be correct than if they are Democrat-bashing. If the New York Times reports a scandal involving a Democrat, it’s more likely to be correct than if they report a scandal involving a Republican.

If content matches known bias from the source, or from the reporting, it is more suspect than if it runs counter to that bias. The same thing is true in all sorts of other areas, from court cases to being stopped by the police for speeding – it’s generally known as an “admission against interests”. It’s still no guarantee, but it’s a better indicator than most people realize.

5. What’s the source of the factual content?

If the National Enquirer were to publish a story that said that 80% of Americans believed in aliens visiting Earth, and the source was an Enquirer reader’s poll, you would be highly skeptical. If they were to give the source as a prestigious university – Harvard, for example – you would be somewhat less skeptical – probably enough that if you cared, you’d go looking for a second source for confirmation, instead of dismissing the story out-of-hand.

If the data is from a pollster, look for who commissioned the survey – their bias could potentially be reflected in the results, not just the interpretation.

Oh yes, if a poll claims a 2.5% margin of error, the real number will probably be within 5% of the reported value – and that could be in either direction. If they claim a 5% margin, factor in a 10% margin of error, which is probably overstating it. This is correct nine times out of ten.

6. Beware Your Vulnerabilities

If you can’t articulate a completely clear reason for believing that a story is true, you have to consider it to be suspect.

“I trust the source” or “It makes sense to me” or “It MUST be true” don’t count.

In particular be suspicious of the phenomenon of Misattribution of memory, especially in the form “I heard it somewhere but don’t remember exactly where”. That won’t protect you from false positives – remembering the source incorrectly – but it will improve the accuracy of your cynicism.

7. Beware The Echo Chamber

Information entering your ecosystem from outside is either more obviously false or more likely to be accurate than information being re-transmitted from inside it. The reason is the Echo Chamber.

There have been recent studies that suggest that the Social Media Echo Chamber doesn’t exist, but that other Echo Chambers do. I reject that finding, for several reasons:

1. It seems unlikely that social media would be the one exception to the rule.

2. I have personal experience of encountering individuals who so irritated me by proselytized for a particular point of view on social media with dogma that I blocked them, excluding a contrarian position from future exposure through my social media.

3. The study misidentifies social media Echo Chambers and how they are supposed to work. “There is a common fear that people are using social media to access only specific types of political information and news. The echo chamber theory says people select information that conforms to their preferences.” – the true effect is about the credibility that people attach to certain sources and communications, and the lack of credibility that they attach to sources and communications that do not agree with their biases. They may or may not seek out disparate perspectives – but if they do, it’s only to see “what lies are [x] telling today?”. It doesn’t matter how many sources tell you that you’re wrong if you believe that they are lying – this will only reinforce your internal bias and polarization.

8. Who Benefits?

Whenever you encounter a communication – be it an advert, a link, a tweet, a Facebook post, an item in a newspaper or magazine, or a segment on a news / current affairs program – always identify who the communication is attempting to benefit. This can not only help to expose bias at work, it provides a framework for identifying whether or not the facts, the interpretation, the internal logic, or the predicted consequences can be trusted. Isolating the location of any falsity helps distinguish between reaction to misinformation, innocent misinformation, accurate reporting of misinformation, willful falsehood, and all the other varieties of deception. Once you know the merits of each part of the communication, you can determine the appropriate way to treat it.

In particular, pay attention to any call to action, explicit or implied.

9. Inherently Suspect Assumptions

When the one incident is described, reported, or explained several different ways by those of differing political or social standpoints, there are a series of questions that I always ask before completing my analysis of the way I perceive the event.

1. Is it possible for both sides to be right?
2. Is it possible for both sides to be wrong?
3. Is it possible for this to be a more complex or complicated situation that’s being oversimplified?

It’s rare for one side or another to have a monopoly on the truth. That was a point I tried to ram home in my 2017 article, Bilateral Political Incorrectness for RPGs, the most recent part of the (irregular) Lessons From The West Wing series.

A Healthy Skepticism

These nine methods will greatly assist in the maintenance of a healthy skepticism. They aren’t infallible – but are a good starting point. The rest is just practice.

With the state of politics in the world right now, these are tools that we all need. It’s a lucky coincidence that they can be applied to improving our games – whether it’s D&D / Pathfinder, Star Trek, Babylon Five, Legend Of The Five Rings, Pulp, Superheroes, Sci-Fi, or whatever. So what are you waiting for?

About The Title

It’s rare for a title not to be fairly clear in meaning by the time I get to the end of an article. It’s even more improbable that such a title would be so appropriate that it doesn’t get changed as a consequence of the first failure. But that’s potentially the case, this time around. So I thought that I had better attach an afterword of sorts to deal with the issue.

The Olympian Perspective is a metaphor for being able to exercise omniscience – looking down from above like a God, free from distractions and prejudice and able to make impartial and unbiased decisions.

It’s often advocated as a position or attitude that GMs should adopt toward their games.

It is also often mis-characterized as demanding detachment, not caring about judgments or decisions one way or the other.

It’s also the attitude that I want to suggest to GMs in the way that they interact with, and understand, the real world in this era of false news and echo chambers. This article is aimed at equipping the GM to do so.

A slightly shorter article than usual, this time around, because my available writing time has been compromised by some medical tests ordered by my cardiologist.

I’ve had to squeeze in as much writing as possible in advance – so this article was written on Sunday, biting into my weekend to find the necessary time.

(Update, for the record: Preliminary report is “no red flags”. Full report pushed back to later January, with the promise that the Cardiologist would call me in sooner if there was anything needing urgent attention. In short, routine, and no cause for alarm.)

Okay, on with the show….

Some plots sneak up behind PCs and mug them. Before they know it, they are mired in the narrative and in it up to their eyebrows.

Other plots are more like roadblocks, standing in the middle of the road and insisting, “you shall not pass”. Anything that obviously poses a direct threat to the PCs and/or any ambitions they might hold qualifies.

But those aren’t the only approaches that you can take. If those are the only colors on your palette, I’m about to expand your world – a little.

The Falling Dominoes

The simplest way of getting the PCs into an adventure is to make it a logical consequence of an adventure that they have already had. Embedding what might at the time seem to be nothing more than a casual encounter into that early adventure, but which is actually the first part of the adventure hook to a future plotline works very well in a number of ways. For example, along the way the PCs have what appears to be a wandering monster encounter like any other, at the end of which, they find themselves in possession of a slightly ornate key that glows faintly with a magical signature when they cast Detect Magic..

A key is one of the hardest plot hooks to ignore. It’s right up there with the Cryptic Message, and the Mistaken Identity. Right away, it demands an answer to the questions “what does it unlock?” and “how did it come to be where we found it?” and “What is the magic?”

These questions will gnaw away at the players, especially since it’s far more the expected thing that they will be resolved quickly. But, instead of doing that, the GM teases the players with hints:

• the PCs encounter a work of some sort by one of the greatest mages ever to have lived, someone who never cast a standard, by-the-book, spell – and recognize the signature as matching that of the key.
• a professional pickpocket attempts to steal the key, only to be caught red-handed by the PCs. Taken into custody and found guilty at what passes for a trial in these parts, he is offered a deal but refuses to take it, preferring to lose both his hands than give up the name of his buyer.
• a collector of unique magical works intercepts the PCs to say that rumor has it that they have a curious key; he offers 2,000gp for it, and (if rebuffed) will increase his offer to 5,000, and not a penny more…

Sure, the PCs might have taken that last offer at one point – but all of the prior encounters have built up the significance and potential value of the key in their minds. They would be pretty sure that 2,000 was very much a low-ball offer, and the speed with which it was increased to 5,000 pretty much confirms it. Barely without noticing it, they have swallowed the hook of the adventure.

And if they do decide to sell? A day later, the purchaser is found, incinerated by a red dragon, the key still in his possession. It could just be a coincidence, but…

The Multi-vector Adventure

A fourth approach is to lay out multiple plot hooks at the start of an adventure and let the players select the one that appeals to them – not knowing that all these plot hooks lead to the same adventure from different directions. If you’re subtle about it, and don’t give the game away, you can get away with this for years.

But there is a problem: while it preserves the appearance of player independence, it is in reality a magician’s force. It doesn’t actually matter which the PCs choose, they remain on the GM’s railroad tracks.

This can be acceptable if there are bail-out points built into the adventure, points at which the PCs can depart from those tracks if they wish; choosing not to do so is voluntarily committing to the next part of the adventure. But it shouldn’t be like that all the time; save this technique for critical parts of the plot that the players have already signaled an interest in.

There is also the problem that the players might choose answer (d), none-of-the-above, and refuse to take any of the GM’s plot hooks, preferring to do something else instead. The need to have some sort of adventure take place (you CAN’T let the campaign get boring) often leads GMs to complicate their world with lots of half-baked and off-the-top-of-their-head creations and plotlines that rapidly spiral out of control. This can even be a campaign-killer.

If there is any risk whatsoever of the PCs refusing the plot hooks, you should always have at least the outlines of an adventure that they can stumble into the middle of, just by being at place X. Even if the whole adventure has to improvised on the basis of those notes, that’s still better than having total freedom with which to mess things up.

To Every Vector, A Tale

But here’s an alternative that might have appeal: Never introduce an NPC or a location without having a future plotline associated with them. Whenever the PCs are in the vicinity, that plotline can be activated. This can be minor, recurring, persistent little subplots, such as the Mayor who wants one of the PCs to marry his incredibly-ugly daughter, or the Official who has chosen one of the PCs to become his successor (a position the PC has no interest in accepting). It might be a legitimate romantic interest, but one with many obstacles standing between the PC and wedded bliss.

So, the PCs enter a tavern to seek shelter for the night. There are three people in the tavern already – a drunken and somewhat depressed dwarf, a human who does his best to hide his face and keep to the shadows, and a local businessman who is pleading with the bartender, “But you must know someone, John?”

Each of these transients represents an entirely different plotline, and if the PCs choose, they can pick up on any of them – or brush it off. Plus, there’s a plotline for the Barman, and a plotline for if they don’t pick any of these and are simply present at the Inn when the location becomes involved in a plotline.

Make sure that each of these will require the full attention of the entire party, and make them choose. Insist that these choices be discussed in character; any Metagaming will result in a fine of XP. And sit back and wait for the PCs to come to the adventure.

If all the adventures have been prepared to the same extent, it’s no skin off the GM’s nose which one the players choose. That extent: enough to get through the first day’s play and some notes on what the rest of the adventure will look like.

And note that you don’t have to pull the trigger on a plotline just because the PCs are interacting with a person or place; you can hold back until the time is right, or you need something in a hurry, if the NPC or location is a recurring element. You can even have a secondary plotline designed to do nothing more than make make these campaign elements recurring ones.

• A place that gives a fair price for their booty.
• A place to stay that is comfortable and reasonably secure in a city that they will have to visit regularly.
• An NPC who assists the party for their mutual benefit.
• A bad penny.
• An NPC who shows up regularly to humiliate the party in some fashion – a darts champion, or poker player, or whatever.

The list is (almost) endless.

You can even have plot hooks that dangle repeatedly but which will not amount to anything – yet – because you haven’t figured out what the plot will be. Someone who seems to be following the party every now and then. The same suspiciously-similar item for sale in several town fairs and marketplaces. The same distinctively-colored bird that gets seen overhead a few hours before a wilderness encounter. Things that you can have fun teasing the players with, that will have to eventually have some sort of payoff – but, for now, are just bits of random life within the campaign.

Many Streams, One River

Some adventures can be considered an inevitable consequence of success, which is to say they will automatically be triggered by the GM when (a) the PCs achieve a particular standard of success, and (b) have time on their hands. Once both conditions are met, the adventure will come to them, whether they like it or not.

It doesn’t matter what adventures the party have had to get to this point; the new adventure occurs simply because the players have done something. Because of this, I refer to adventures with this structure as “Many Streams, One River” plots.

There can be a number of these, but they should always be less than the number of “streams” within the campaign, by some margin. Otherwise, these “master plots” can become the dominant factor within the campaign.

The Heroic Advantage

Some genres have a natural advantage, in that the PCs know that they are playing Heroes and have an obligation built into their construction and backgrounds to deal with whatever menaces and villains present themselves.

It doesn’t matter what the plot hook is, the PCs are obligated to swallow it.

This makes life very easy for the GM in some respects, but it also makes it much harder in others. There are singular dangers to the campaign that must be dealt with – when invoking The Heroic Advantage.

“Not What We Signed Up For”

It’s absolutely essential that the GM be explicit about the Heroic expectations that he is placing before the PCs in advance.

“You will be playing an Elite Force assembled by the Elven Council to deal with an ominous threat that some Elves have foreseen in visions. You are the 12th such elite force to have been created; on previous occasions, the time of danger came and went without incident. Afterward, some of the previous groups disassembled and went their individual ways; some remained together and dealt with such lesser threats as presented themselves, in the process gaining fame and occasionally fortune.” is unequivocal in its demands, and expects characters to be designed to match.

It’s necessary for the GM to follow through on these expectations, too. If you were gathering such an elite force, you would give them the best training, the best equipment, and so on, that you possibly could. The training is theirs forever, they might or might not have to give the equipment back. Those summoned to form such a group might be one-part prophetic guidance, one part logic, one part politics, and one part sheer talent in the choice. “We have to have a Dwarf, they will only get in the way, otherwise”. “[X] is the best in a generation at [Y], she must be included!” “They must have a Cleric for spiritual guidance, and the only one that the other faiths will listen to is a cleric of [Deity!]” – and so on.

If you have the time, look back over the background to the Zener Gate campaign, which I developed right here in front of everyone (see “Improvising A Campaign: introducing the Zener Gate campaign!“, especially the set-off section in purple at the end of the article, and you will see that PC involvement and engagement is very much demanded and defined by the campaign concept). Right now, it’s reached the point where the PCs have limited communications, access to reference materials through those communications, can carry a reasonable amount of gear, have obtained equipment that will eventually let them gain partial control over their jumps (once they figure out exactly how to work it), have encountered a different Zener Gate team from an alternate timeline that are doing their best to screw everything up (from the PCs point of view), and found that there’s even more complexity to time travel than they thought there was!

It can often be helpful to outline these “menu options” in advance, “character hooks” to guide the construction of the party, first come, first served. “I want to play a tough guy in the front lines of the fight, so I’ll take the Paladin slot from the class list. I like the idea of being a member of an unusual race, so I’ll take that slot on the racial list. An Orcish Paladin might be fun. Finally, why is he part of the team? Being ‘the best of his generation’ could be fun, but there’s room for a lot more roleplay being ‘chosen for political reasons but will come to earn the party’s respect’.

With those choices made, the GM dutifully crosses them off his list of acceptable choices – if necessary, adding them to the list and then crossing them off!

The key with such things is always to have at least one more option (and preferably more) than the number of players, so that each player always has a choice. Whatever’s left at the end is reserved for new PCs if someone else joins, or for NPCs – or can simply be left out to create a ‘gap’ that the PCs will have to fill with sweat and expertise.

In a simplified form, this is how I filled the roster for my Zenith-3 campaign back in 1998. That campaign, with most of those same characters, remains in operation to this day, more than 21 years later. 10-20 years from now, it will be complete – if we all last that long (I’ll be 76 at the top end of that range, and my oldest player, in his eighties!)



Image by silviarita from Pixabay. I almost used this as the main illustration for this article. You can probably see why. Cropped and blur + sharpness applied selectively to focus attention on the image subject.

The Perils Of Similarity

One of the big dangers of such ease is that the GM gets lazy. My players often call it “enemy of the week” syndrome. This is one respect in which the heroic advantage can become a millstone around the GM’s neck if he isn’t careful.

Just because the players “have” to take the bait each time, doesn’t mean that the bait shouldn’t have different flavors and textures. This requirement actually makes it harder to ‘get the characters into an adventure’ than it often is without the Heroic Advantage.

Nor can you assume that the players will ‘take the bait’ in exactly the manner that you have anticipated. They may sniff it, lick it, nibble at it, come at it from an unexpected direction, check it for traps, add seasoning…. you get the point.

Again, laziness is the enemy; in any regular campaign, where the PCs weren’t obligated to swallow the hook, the GM knows that he has to sell the players on his prepared plotlines, has to engage their interest and keep it riveted upon the story. The one unacceptable choice must be to say “Who Cares” or “Nothing we can do” and go home. You have to work just as hard at this with the Heroic Advantage in play, because even then, these options are not off the table.

The Diorama Problem, or, Pulp Without Juice

Another problem is that the plots can all start to look alike to the players. This is another aspect of GM laziness stemming from using the Heroic Advantage as a crutch to your creativity.

I have two different names for this phenomenon, as you can see – which usually means that I haven’t yet found a universal code for the problem.

No matter what your campaign genre, no matter what your campaign concept is, you need variety in the adventures. You need to continually being players to the adventures in ways that they were not expecting, but in ways that maintain the credibility and integrity of the campaign and its structure. Which includes the odd occasion when a completely straightforward adventure is exactly what it seems to be!

The best plot twists are the ones that the players won’t see coming. I have to admit that I overuse plot twists, to the point where players start looking for them and anticipating what they might be (with a roughly one in six rate of being correct).

One way of differentiating between adventures is to place them in different contexts, and the easiest way of doing so is to focus on the personal lives of the PCs on a reasonably regular basis. If those “personal stories” are always evolving, it doesn’t matter quite so much that the rest of the campaign isn’t evolving as quickly. And it means that those stories that DO contain a significant milestone in either the primary adventuring lives of the PCs, or in the campaign Background, are all the more attention-getting when they happen.

And that’s what we want.

Epic Vs Gritty Vs Heroic Fantasy

All this is true regardless of campaign genre. It’s as applicable to Fantasy Campaigns (even of the Murder Hobo variety) as it is to Pulp or to Superheroes.

But it’s not universally true of all campaign styles.

That’s one reason why it’s important to define the style or tone of a campaign, make sure that the players know it, and appraise everything else in light of the particular style you’ve chosen.

There are three campaign styles that are sometimes misunderstood or confused, and the differences are critical to the plot approach that you’re using.

EPIC means larger than life. The PCs will become Significant Individuals, perhaps even rivals to the Deities or more, no matter how lowly their beginnings. The adventures they have will contain repercussions that change the entire world around them, in part defining the context for their next adventure.

GRITTY means local adventures, with no guarantee that the PCs will ever be anyone important, no matter how skilled or advanced they become within their professions; there will always be someone better. I some ways, these are easier adventures to write, in others they are much harder – unless you reduce your adherence to verisimilitude to in-name-only along the way. That’s because “Gritty” as a concept is fundamentally at odds with character advancement on the D&D scale. Somewhere along that advancement track is a point at which you have to say, “no more” and end the campaign – though perhaps not the campaign world, new PCs may be just around the corner! Generally, the line of departure is specified by what Wizards and Clerics can do. My experience (which is out of date, I admit) is that multiple fifth-level spells tend to be close to the limit, but that’s just a personal opinion.

HEROIC tries to plant a foot in both camps at the same time. It tends to lack the sweeping change possible guaranteed in an epic campaign, but can be far greater in scope than a Gritty campaign – thereby avoiding the problems associated with being “street level” when you can do too much to impact that street.

Purely as an aside, I think that maybe D&D / Pathfinder made a mistake in maintaining a daily spell allocation. A lot of the problems would be a lot smaller if 4th-6th level spells were weekly, 7th and 8th level spell allocations were per week, and 9th (and above) spells were monthly or even yearly affairs. If you wanted to, you could make these changes progressive and bake them into the spell slots acquired at each level.

In the old days, Mages had to get a lot better at spellcasting because they were useless at anything else. These days, there’s no such excuse – they may be weaker in martial terms than their peers, but it’s a simple matter to enhance their effectiveness in that sphere, and can even make the system more credible.

Food for thought, hmm?

A Straight Thread With The Occasional Knot

As a general rule, I think of plotlines as extending a straight thread from beginning of campaign to end – with the occasional knot or temporary sidestep that has nothing to do with that straight thread. Except that the “straight line” runs directly through an N-dimensional maze, that’s the essential structure of my Zener Gate campaign.

More complex visions are possible. You may have several straight threads that lead from beginning to end, but that are loose and disconnected from each other for most of their journey, only coming together in the buildup to a big finish. That’s the model for my superhero campaign.

If I look at the Pulp campaign that I co-GM, still another pattern emerges – loops and swirls and spirals instead of a straight line, while all the while each PC has a personal story running that is far more of a straight line.

If I look back over recent adventures, they have been set in 1937, 1938, 1934, 1936, 1935, 1936, and 1936 again – at least in terms of world history as it impacts the storyline. The last “defining moment” in terms of pinning down the internal date was that the Japanese invasion of China has not yet started but Hitler’s command of Germany is well-established. The next one planned is the Berlin Olympics, which haven’t happened yet, in-game. For background, we draw on whatever year is relevant to the plotline, and stitch them together into a coherent world history more in the breach than in the observance. This stuff stays in the background – because the moment that war is declared, certain PCs would be called to duty, and the campaign irrevocably changed. So instead, we will cycle back-and-forth endlessly between 1930 and 1938 or -9 – until we, or the players, are ready for the campaign to end. And yes, when that happens, we do have an “end of an era” adventure in our back pockets.

Is Internal Adventure Structure Relevant?

The answer to this question is both “Yes” and “No”.

“Yes” in that variety of adventure tones are required in any campaign, and that the tone of the introductory hook should either match, or progress to, the tone of the main adventure.

Most GMs and writers know this instinctively; you can have a lull in the action before returning to the tone established, or you can have a rising intensity throughout (with the occasional quiet moment as punctuation), but having an adventure with less energy and vibrancy than it started with creates an anticlimax.

“No” in that these are the only respects in which the internal structure of an adventure makes any real difference to the structure of the “box” that surrounds it and connects it to other adventures and spans in between to form a campaign.

How you link adventures to form a campaign is a difficult art to learn without experience and experimentation. Ultimately, the purpose of these structures are to deliver the PCs (and hence the players) to the “front door” (or the “open window”) of the adventure in the correct mindset to engage in the internal content. Whatever methods you choose and master has to satisfy that requirement. Anything else is window-dressing – nice to have but not necessarily essential. Utilizing a variety of approaches (and mastering them) is just as important as matching the ideal approach for any given adventure. What will you use as bait next next time?

I don’t have many pet peeves – technology that suddenly stops working without explanation, or won’t do what you tell it to in a timely fashion are two of the biggies.

Computer Gamers and Game Companies describing what they do as “Gaming” as though all other forms of game-playing were irrelevant is another. Computer Gaming and Tabletop RPGs are chalk and cheese in many respects.

TTRPGs are as much like a computer game – even a computer RPG – as they are like a TV show or movie, which is to say that there are superficial resemblances deriving from certain aspects of the production that are similar – and that’s it.

Interaction

The manner of interaction is completely different, for one thing. To the extent that there are any similarities, it’s the computer RPG simulating being like a TTRPG, and not vice-versa. Most computer games use either mouse-point-and-click or keyboard controls (and I include PlayStations and the like – just because they only have four keys…).

TV show interactions are even more limited – feedback through various sources, some social media interactivity (depending on the show), and the occasional public vote conducted using telephone call-ins. Everything else is basically the same as it was in the 1950s (if you conflate emails with traditional mail).

Display

Computer Games – with the exception of text-based games, which went out of style nearly 40 years ago – are intensely graphical in nature. They can’t leave anything to the imagination for a number of reasons – first, you might need to interact with whatever-it-is (even if such interaction does nothing, if the game only has objects with which you can interact, they aren’t exactly hidden or surprising); secondly, because they need to create immersion in order to keep you playing, and thirdly because different people will imagine the same thing quite differently from one another, limiting the appeal of the game for those who aren’t especially imaginative. And that bites into profits, and that’s unacceptable.

TV shows can’t leave anything to the imagination, either – though they can occasionally substitute a representative visual facsimile for something the censors would deem unacceptable. For the most part (especially in modern times), the attitude is that if you can’t show something happening in a given time-slot, it doesn’t exist in programs that air in that time-slot.

TTRPGs have a default operating mode of “within the imagination”(s) of the players, making them completely different in the demands placed upon them from the other two forms of media under discussion. GMs focus on delivering descriptive narrative and ways of ensuring that the interpretations of each player at least overlap.

Movement

Television and movie images are inherently capable of movement, however illusory – so much so that movies derive their name from the earlier term, “Moving Pictures”.

Most computer games rely on mobile animated elements set against a still or scrolling background, and so simulate a fully-moving image at a fraction of the computing demands that full animation presents. Only very old or very simple computer games rely purely on fixed images (see my earlier comments on text-based games, which inevitably normally have either still images or no images at all).

Most Tabletop RPGs have no images – again making them different from the other two media – except perhaps from something from a game supplement, used as eye candy, or to depict something for which it is important that everyone be on the same page in imagining – such as the shape (and implied capabilities) of a monstrous creature. Virtually all of them are Still images, though.

Atmosphere and Ambiance

In my book, these are the real big-ticket items when it comes to the differences between the three media kinds.

Television has no less than five weapons at its disposal; movies have the same five, but more money to spend on each of them. Unfortunately, they often also have micro-management-by-committee, a recipe for safety and blandness; so they have greater obstacles to overcome, simply because there is more money available to splash around.

• Music is almost continually present in both movies and TV shows, an almost subliminal presence. Each major character normally has their own theme or motif, often a slight variation on the main theme; producers have learned the hard way that this aids character recognition, even if the audience aren’t aware of it.

  Sometimes, key locations will have their own themes, too. Understanding the way that music adds to a cinematic experience can be difficult, simply because most of us aren’t aware of the music in a production most of the time.

  The 4-disk director’s cut of The Lord Of The Rings goes into the subject in some depth, with further releases in that trilogy adding to the subject.

  But there’s a simpler technique if all you want is an appreciation of the value brought by a soundtrack: the inappropriate Mashup.

  1. Load in a movie and add subtitles for the hearing impaired so that you can read the dialogue;
  2. Turn the sound all the way down;
  3. Play a soundtrack from a completely different tone or style of movie and see how much the ‘flavor’ and nuance of the movie changes.

  Some suggested Mashups for the purpose:

  • The Maltese Falcon and the Star Wars Soundtrack;
  • The Sting with The Exorcist’s Soundtrack;
  • The Great Escape with the Apocalypse Now soundtrack; or
  • Titanic with the soundtrack to Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

  This won’t enlighten you as to technique – that will require far deeper study – but it will at least demonstrate the power of the soundtrack to evince ambiance and atmosphere.

• Sound Effects, better known in the visual media as Foley and Sound Design, are also far more ubiquitous than most audiences realize. Unless it’s a live broadcast, every sound that you hear on-screen has been made for the purpose by an expert – and frequently using something completely different to the object creating the sound on-screen. The most famous example is probably coconut shells for the sound of horses’ hooves!

  The job has undoubtedly changed somewhat with the advent of libraries and digital archives of sound effects, and – of course – it was Star Wars that launched the related field of Sound Design into prominence. These days, it can be hard to remember just how groundbreaking that movie was in this context. But so evocative are the sound effects from Star Wars that you can play them (and there are many of the iconic sounds available over the internet, or at least used to be) and you are instantly “in” the movie – no visuals or soundtrack or dialogue needed.

  Don’t believe me? Try the “Star Wars Dogfight” (fifth from the bottom) on SoundBible.com or the Lightsaber Turn On (third from the top) and be convinced for yourself!

  For a deeper look at Foley, I can recommend this article at techradar, which has links to a number of documentary excerpts on the subject, and here’s a two-minute excerpt from The Shining from mashable and the famous T-Rex scene from Jurassic Park, both with deliberately bad foley effects showing how much they can add – or detract – from a scene.

• Costume Designers work very hard at their craft. Much of the detail they put into a costume will never be noticed by the viewing public but costume designers carry much of the burden of generating a feeling of authenticity – whether it’s a suburban shopping mall or the bridge of a starship, the inhabitants of a hobbit village or the finery of an Elizabethan court. Again, I can’t not recommend the documentary extras of The Lord Of The Rings highly enough, but a documentary on the creation of Dr Strange’s costume won’t vanish from my memory quickly, either. I don’t think it’s the same documentary, but this youTube video should at least hit the highlights. Like Foley, much of the artistry flies beneath the radar. But good costuming is essential to creating the atmosphere of a scene.

  For example, below is a portrait of Richard Sackville, Earl of Dorset, painted in 1613, and a closeup showing some of the detail in the clothing – and another in which the image has been translated into an entirely inappropriate setting.

  

  Original image provided by Wikipedia, Motorcycle image by Alexas_Fotos from Pixabay, collage by Mike

  When you look at the motorcycle image, Richard almost looks like he belongs – the swagger and attitude fit – so you start casting about, mentally, trying to find some explanation for the completely incongruous wardrobe choice. You might remember Meatloaf’s lacy shirts, or the New Romantics, and before them, glam rock. But then the motorcycle isn’t quite right.

  And, of course, a subdivision within the broad category of Costume is makeup and prosthetics – everything from Gandalf’s false nose to Thor’s Hair (and, for all I know, his beard).

• Architecture & Set Design
  Costumes clearly don’t work except in the right context or setting – and that’s where the Architects and Set Designers come into the picture. Together, they are responsible for a huge proportion of the style and ambiance of the presentation. In one of the Stargate SG1 box sets – I forget which, but it was one of the later ones – there was a DVD extra that looked behind the scenes at the set construction, giving a more functional presentation of the work they did than any other such documentary snippet that I’ve come across. (The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, normally my first go-to for such, was more about the use of miniatures, but there is also some interest in the design and construction of Bag End – but this wasn’t done in the usual fashion for such things, so its general utility is lacking for educational and reference purposes).
• Which, quite naturally, leads us to Visual Effects. Most people equate this with lightsabers and spaceships shooting blasters and phasers at each other, and anything that explodes or emits showers of sparks, and they would be right to include those – but the totality encompassed by Visual Effects, even excluding CGI and Motion Capture, is far greater. Everything from creating weather on demand to cars that have to be driven on camera – or appear to be driven on camera, or appear to drive themselves! Mechanical effects are also often incorporated into set design and makeup. For example, a set may be built with break-away doors or walls to enhance a fight scene. Stunts and stunt work also fall within the jurisdiction of special effects – and that’s why even shows like Elizabeth, about the British Historical Monarch, have a special effects team.

In their own way, Computer Games emulate or incorporate exactly the same tools as TV and movies, but the balance is slightly shifted in some cases.

• Music is just as important for Computer Games as it is for TV, but generally doesn’t get the same level of recognition – and that is a fraction of the recognition that pop artists get. The best way to get some idea of how important music is to Computer Gaming is to look for walk-through videos, because many of them save space by dumping the sound, or replacing it with their own commentary. For example, there is a series of flash-based games called Disaster Will Strike, whose walk-throughs (from memory) are soundless. Many flash games also give the player the option to turn off the music independent of the sound effects (or reduce it’s volume to zero, which does the same thing). Sometimes, to save on memory and processor demands, I’m forced to turn the music off but I rarely do so if I can avoid it.

  There are even some games that are music-based – both free to play and gambling oriented. The first are fairly easy to find, and all seem to be basic variations on guitar hero and hitting the right arrow at the right time. The latter are much rarer, but if you’re interested in some music games that you can bet on, you’ll find some at my bonus code.

  Other sites are moving in the opposite direction, aiming to make the player more comfortable by providing music of a genre they like while they play. You can even access various podcasts while playing these games. The front-runner in this movement is Fanduel – look for the TuneIn feature and enjoy music genres including R&B, Classical, College, Classic Hits, Soul, and more.

• Sound Effects are, once again, the other half of the audio jigsaw. Like foley, in most cases you don’t notice these unless they are lacking, or not properly synchronized with the action. Again, some games give you the option of turning these off separately to the musical soundtrack, giving you the chance to explore the contribution made by the Sound Effects. That contribution will vary from game to game, of course.
• Costume is often a bigger deal for computer games than it is for TV shows, at least so far as design is concerned. The reason for this emphasis is that in TV shows you have an actual actor who carries some of the load; in computer games, the designers have to produce the entire character. On top of that, every possible action has to be scripted and animated.
• Architecture & Set Design Like costume design, in some ways this is more elaborate than designing for TV or movies, but in most respects, less. These are often digitally-painted static backgrounds, which can never be permitted to intrude upon the game-play or the action. In other cases, they are frames for active game elements like doors that make it appear as though the whole scene were animated. The more layers of independent and interactive elements there are, the more realistic the world seems – and the higher the demands placed on the technology that operates the game and its functions.

  Certain games acquire a reputation for outstanding graphics by pushing the boundaries of what is possible. The history of computer gaming is littered with milestones – some of them obvious, such as the transition from 8-bit graphics to 16-bit, back in the mid-80s, but to properly address that history, it needs to be divorced from the history of the underlying technological infrastructure; at best, this divides the story into chapters.

  Information on the subject within these constraints is surprisingly hard to come by; website after website seemed promising only to abandon computer-based gaming for consoles at the first opportunity. I’m happy for consoles to be part of the story, but game evolution (mostly on the PC, or system-independent games played through a browser) did not stop on the day the first console was released.

  Evolution Of Video Game Graphics from Silicon Republic contains some useful information, and is a good starting point. It contains a link to a 13-minute youTube video covering 1952-2015) at the bottom of the article that is directly about the subject. Other youTube videos that tackle the subject are this one (1958-2018) 10’39” and this one, claiming to cover 1962-now in just 11 minutes. A more comprehensive series on YouTube by Stuart Brown, A Brief History Of Graphics (originally presented in 5 parts and now stitched together into a single 45 minute documentary) promises still more depth.

  But the ultimate resources (because you can return to them time and again) are a pair of books, available through Amazon: An Illustrated History of 151 Video Games: A detailed guide to the most important games; exploring five decades of game evolution (US $26.88), and The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon (US $17.60).

• Visual Effects occupy a special niche within computer gaming simply because they lean toward the more pyrotechnic and fantastic. I don’t know about anyone else, but many of my visualizations of the way various D&D spells work is still rooted in the AD&D games of the 80s such as Pool Of Radiance and the other Gold Box D&D games from SSI. Explosions and ray blasts and collisions between objects and the like are an inherent component of computer games.

  Which means that they are an inherent part of distinguishing one computer game from another. Much of the difference in “look and feel” between Balder’s Gate and Diablo, for example, lie in the special effects.

TTRPGs traditionally have none of these. They have to create ambiance with word choice, pacing, and narrative content; they need to employ the same tools, plus tone, and triggering events, to create atmosphere.

If the PCs act differently to what you had anticipated, the atmosphere has to immediately change in response, or the GM’s narrative will feel ‘out of step’ with the in-game reality. The GM needs the active cooperation of the players to succeed in generating atmosphere within a game.

The Use of Augmentations in TTRPG

It’s no wonder, then, that GMs are turning to the same tools used to create ambiance and atmosphere in the other media forms under discussion to augment the reality that they are spinning out of cobwebs and phrasing.

At a general level, these forms of game augmentation can be divided into two main branches – visuals and audio – each of which can then be subdivided into three primary subcategories.

Visuals

I’m going to start with the visuals and do my best to keep the discussion general and confined, rather than bogging down into too much detail. These, after all, are not new subjects here at Campaign Mastery.

Images & Maps

In the form of maps, visual augmentation from within this category is as old as RPGs. These days, it encompasses vastly more – such as seeking out images on the internet that depict a character or setting for illustrative purposes. I’ve devoted a number of articles to this subject already, both its utility and the practicalities involved – everything from using Google Image Search (which has changed in the way it works twice since the article was written, and not for the better – but not so much that the old article is completely out of date!) to how to change the color and tone of images. This is the augmentation tool that I use more than any other (one of these days I’ll have to publish an excerpt from one of my adventures with all the graphics that I use integrated into it – it will have to be a special project because of copyright restrictions constraining my choice of images).

Miniatures

Miniatures and Battlemaps are even older than RPGs, since their earliest incarnations derive from Wargames, including the predecessor games that led to original D&D. They are so important that they have their own category and tag here at Campaign Mastery, currently containing twelve posts.

Props

Props are something that you either love or hate. There can even be dispute over exactly what should be included in this category – are handouts and prepared notes to the players “props” or not?

This uncertainty has impacted on this classification’s representation here at Campaign Mastery – there’s only one post explicitly tagged as “props”, but I’m sure I’ve done more than that. In fact, the relevant section of the Blogdex currently lists no less than ten articles on the subjects of Props and Handouts (and I really should think about doing one on character notes. And there was the recent poker game in the Pulp Campaign, which employed two stacked decks to actually let the PC concerned see and hold his hands. So much to write, so little time…)

Sounds

The side of the coin with which I am far less familiar is the use of Audio enhancement. There are reasons for that, but I’ll get into that a little later.

Audio Textures

Audio textures are foley for the RPG. Designed to be playable on a continuous loop, they contain things like birdsong and wind, or rain, or thunder, or the generic ‘clank’ of steel striking steel. They may include the sound of horse’s hooves if the PCs are riding.

Ideally, you would create unique audio textures from layers of elements so that you can match perfectly the circumstances in your campaign, and there is software that lets you do just that – if you have the samples that you need to include. In practice, I suspect that you would probably put together four or five “standard mixes” – travel (good weather), travel (bad weather), indoors (inn), and combat would probably do 90% or more of a campaign.

I looked at some of the problems and requirements involved in using sound in an RPG (thinking only of music at the time) in The Hollow Echo Part 1 – Adding Music To Your Game – but that was written and published three years ago, and things move fast in the software world. How many of the resources are still valid is unknown. I can report that I found several new ones searching for “Star Wars Sound Effects” earlier in writing this article, so if they are gone, it’s not the end of the world.

Soundtracks

Which brings me to the question of soundtracks, which was dealt with specifically in the article listed above. Because I took as broad an approach as possible in looking at the advantages and limitations, what to choose as a soundtrack, and so on, it should all still be relevant, and spares me from getting into too much detail here. In fact, I’ll just quote from the concluding paragraph: “Music in RPGs: There are a lot of people who swear by it. There are others whose circumstances limit the utility of the proposal. My opinion is that if you can solve the problems and if you can achieve a suitable environment, it can’t help but add to the gaming experience – but those are two very big caveats. Fall down in either area, and you may find that it’s a detriment of devastating impact.”

There’s also some material on both props and sounds in Taking advantage of the sensory hierarchy that readers might find useful.

Vocal Inflections & Accents

The remaining enhancement is the most commonly employed one. We all have a go at it now and again, no matter how hopeless we are at it! There have been at least two articles on the subject here at Campaign Mastery that are worth perusing, especially if this is the only string in your bow:

Speaking In Tongues: Writing Dialogue & Oratory – before you can speak it, you have to write it – and

The Secret Arsenal Of Accents – how I integrate foreign languages and accents into my vocal performance even though I’m hopeless at them.

A third post that looks relevant is actually about PCs and the oratory skill (or its equivalent), and not about GMs orating.

The Limitations and Flaws

Okay, so I’ve cast an eye over the field, and it looks rich. But there are pitfalls to consider, too.

Visuals

There are five major issues to contemplate. Virtually all the images that you can present will be still, not animated – limiting the usefulness of the image. You can compensate to some extent by focusing your attention on wallpaper-sized images, big enough that you can zoom in and pan around. I’ll only select something smaller than 1200×800 if there’s absolutely nothing worthwhile that’s larger. What’s more, it’s normal for me to select three or more contenders for any given image and then select between them. Of course, I’ll save the others to a separate folder for future use!

Another problem with images is that they are often dismissed as nothing more than eye candy by the players. They don’t realize how much work went into finding and editing the image in question. You need to be like a Foley artist in this respect – you don’t want your work to be noticeable in it’s contrivance, but you don’t want it to be irrelevant, either. This is a question of what you choose to depict and what you will leave to the imagination – especially if miniatures can enhance and bolster that imagination. A picture, after all, Should Be Worth 1,000 Words.

Miniatures are frozen snapshots – no movement that is not supplied externally – and symbolic representations, rarely accurate in depicting individuals. Provided you can get something that is a reasonable representation, though, they can be extremely useful. If you don’t use them, you have to work extra hard at describing combat situations so that the players are aware of their environment and the limitations it imposes on their courses of action – and any opportunities it opens up. One of the biggest problems that I note is miniatures that are not sufficiently distinctive. It’s not quite as bad as needing to give each PC his own distinctive color pattern, but it’s also not quite accurate to dismiss the thought. Pre-painted miniatures takes all the ham-fistedness out of the equation, but also restricts individuality. A custom paint job is nothing but individual, but it makes you totally dependent on your skill at painting figures.

In between, there are a number of intermediate skills. For example, you might settle for painting over a pre-painted miniature’s shield – a flat and relatively simple shape that makes it possible to render examples of the same basic character as individuals. Or you might get good at painting beards onto characters (or not). I once knew a guy who was terrible at painting miniatures – but, by being extremely careful and delicate, he had mastered the art of dunking figures heads or crests just enough that he could change hair color. Contrast that with someone else I once knew who spray-painted small pieces of steel wool before coating them in a clear lacquer that permitted these ‘hairs” to be glued in place as an actual beard or hair appliance, or fur-cuffs. He could change a sword into a dagger, or a dagger into a spear, so well that you couldn’t tell (after painting) that the figure hadn’t arrived from the factory that way.

What you do with miniatures depends on what skill level you have access to.

Props are often clunky, limited, time-consuming to create, and usually only broadly indicative of the “reality” they represent. I find that they tend to be more trouble than they are worth, most of the time. But there are exceptions. In particular, some way of indicating who you are speaking as can be exceptionally useful – I know one GM who has a stick with a slot cut into the end, onto which he can attach a name-card. When speaking in character, he simply holds it aloft to indicate who’s talking.

Most of the time, I find that it isn’t necessary with well-written dialogue.

What I do find necessary from time to time are handouts and notes to the players. I consider these to be props, too, even though they both function at a metagame level; they are both ways for the GM to speak to the character, telling him something that “in theory” he already knows, but that the player controlling him does not. I’ve given away most of the handouts that I’ve produced over the years here at Campaign Mastery, one way or the other.

There’s one problem that applies to all of these both individually and in combination: Overload. This can be a real problem; too many inputs can overwhelm the listener. “He’s like this picture, but dressed fancier, and he has a green glowing wand that he waves around something like the way I’m waving this stick, and oh yes, he’s wearing….” This is too much for most people; they can mentally adjust the image that they are being shown according to the GM’s words, but the costuming just fades into insubstantiality when you start concentrating on the waved stick – and so does the image. The real problem in this example is the choice of an insufficiently representative image. Pick one with the right clothes, collage in the head with the face that you want, and collage in a green-glowing wand – if necessary, importing a hand that is gripping it. Then repair any holes in the background. It’s better for the elements to look somewhat hacked together than for one of them to be wrong.

Another form of overload was made palpable in the pulp campaign a while back. The story is spelt out in An Experimental Failure – 10 lessons from a train-wreck Session. But both players and campaign survived this brush with calamity – with some hard lessons learned.

Unfortunately, most GMs regard themselves as writers first and foremost – accurately, of course – and few of them have ever attempted to master a painting program of any sophistication (Microsoft’s free “paint” program doesn’t count). That means that they often lack the skills needed to perform such editing collages. That isn’t always the case, and in reality it’s far less common than the people concerned think; it’s often a confidence issue, not a real limitation. As I said, a poor execution is preferable to an execution that’s lacking.

The final problem to be discussed in this section is also common to all three modes of visual enhancement: GM Workload. Each of these augmentation techniques comes with an overhead, especially when you are first starting out. It takes time to write good foreign-tinged dialogue; it takes time to search out suitably illustrative images, and more time to edit the ones that aren’t quite what you need. It takes time to customize miniatures and plan how they are to be arranged on the battlemap. It all takes time, and most GMs are already crunched for prep time.

Used correctly, these enhancements can ultimately save you prep time – I don’t know how long it takes the average GM to write 1000 words (it would take me somewhere between two and five hours, depending on how much of it flowed naturally); if it takes 30 minutes to find and edit an image that replaces that thousand words, that’s a net gain; if it takes two hours, that’s a break-even; if it takes four or more hours, that’s probably a time loss. Of course, if I have three or four quick images, that probably makes room for that longer job. It’s all a balancing act; and key to it all is making darned sure that the value of the image is as close to that mythic thousand words as possible.

Sounds

I have to grope a little more when it comes to sounds, because I don’t have experience in using them; my one experiment in that direction was a disaster, a tale told in The Hollow Echo Part 1, and revisited below. But before we get that far, consider this: Sounds can overwhelm voice, which remains the primary communications mode within a game. It can sometimes be difficult hearing everyone even without adding a soundtrack and/or ambient campaign noise to the environment.

In order to play sounds, you will need some sort of Technology. At first, that seems no problem – almost every PC and mobile phone has the necessary software by default these days; throw in a Bluetoothed speaker and “Bob’s your uncle” as the old Australian slang would have put it. Except that the software provided is rarely the most user-friendly way of going about the task – ideally, you want something that can display a list of tracks and repeat the one you select immediately and effortlessly. The default media players tend to be lousy at that. To say nothing of wanting to mix sources and fade from one track into another, or play two tracks simultaneously. None of these are difficult problems to solve in terms of the technology; but most apps neither need nor want this functionality. Finding the combination of hardware and software that does exactly what you want, as painlessly as possible, may take quite some time. In the meantime, you will be stuck with a second-best or third-best solution at best.

Loading times can vary enormously. Even something as trivial as the power levels of your device, and whether or not you’re on battery power, can make a difference. So can innumerable under-the-hood conditions that you never get to see. And you have to not only load the software, but the file, and perhaps at the same time that you have a word processor and file explorer and graphics display program all running. This brings me back to that disaster of sound that I mentioned earlier.

Disaster is probably too harsh a term, to be honest. But here’s the story: “There came a time in [my Dr Who] campaign where the Doctor (the sole PC) was to encounter the Daleks, and for dramatic purposes, and because I could, I wanted him to hear their famous “Ext-er-min-ate” before he saw them. After a bit of a web-search, I found a wav file that was good enough for the purpose. At the proper moment, I double-clicked the sound file to play it – after spending 30 seconds trying to get Windows 8 to display the folder. And waited. And waited. And waited. And then, with all the dramatic tension irretrievably lost, it played. Biggest anticlimax in ten years or more of GMing.” – all that’s a direct quotation from The Hollow Echo. Actually, it was a little worse than described – the file took so long to load and play that the player started speaking, and so missed the first part of the file. “…erm-in-ate” has even less impact, hard to believe as that might be.

After this event, I ran some tests. Sometimes, the file took 3 seconds to load. Sometimes, 2 or more minutes. The more things that I had open, the more the trend was toward the high end – but it wasn’t consistent. Even loading it up ahead of time, with the laptop set to “mute” so as not to have premature recognition by the player, did not result in consistent performance, though it helped. The greatest reliability came from having the file playing continuously, muted, until I needed it – then pause it, un-mute (wait if necessary, it often is, for the un-mute to take effect) then hit play – spending the time in between engaging the player in game-related conversation and switching the software to single playback, not looped.

Too many moving parts, too complicated, too likely to stuff up on me.

Having a longer file, and audio tapestry, which I wasn’t trying to synchronize with in-game events, would make a huge difference. This was a sound effect that went awry; ambiance might be an entirely different kettle of fish. And YMMV. So take the object lesson to heart as a warning – and do some testing and playing around in advance of committing yourself to using this enhancement.

The third sensitive point is “Appropriateness and Originality”. It’s relatively easy to achieve originality with an image that you can alter to suit your purposes; it’s a lot harder with sounds. That means that your sound mix has to be closer to “perfect” to start with, and most of us aren’t equipped to create what we need. That means using someone else’s work; so long as it’s for private use, you probably won’t need to worry about copyrights (but be careful if you podcast your games). But it also exposes you to a whole lot of associations that may be unwanted.

For example, let’s say that you’re using a soundtrack mix that you’ve created yourself using classical music and selections from various movie soundtracks. One track ends and the next cues up – and a player exclaims, “hey, that’s the music from the toilet paper commercial” – or “from Indiana Jones” – or whatever. Because these pieces of music have all been used before, often for all sorts of things, these associations can pop to the surface and intrude into your game at the most extraordinarily-inconvenient times.

Finally, as with images, there’s the ever-present problem of GM Workload – not only in prep but at the game table. A couple of seconds’ pause while the next image comes up doesn’t matter much since once it does, you don’t have to do anything to it except show it to everyone. That’s not the case with a sound file – hit play, make sure the volume’s right, why isn’t it playing yet, oh it’s still loading, here we go, whoops it’s on repeat (or not on repeat) and this is the wrong track….

Not All TV Shows Are Created Alike

There are four ways in which every TV show is different. First, no matter how similar they may be, every show is different, and so the demands made are different. And that means that some shows are more difficult than others. Stargate is not the same as Deep Space Nine, which is not the same as Battlestar Galactica, which is not the same as The Flash, which is not the same as… well, you get the point.

Each show has a different budget, season-on-season, and on any given episode. Financial planning is critical for any department in producing a TV show, and you often have to rob Peter to pay Paul – “bottle episodes” used in advance to save money for a bigger show that is only being scheduled now. In a perfectly just world, the budget would be proportionate to the difficulty – but it never is.

To make up the difference, you have only the Skill and Dedication of the department affected. But dedication can only go so far – and the unions tend to frown on unpaid labor, even if it’s labor of love. That’s why penny-pinching when it comes to hiring department heads is often a false economy, and producers know it. Hiring the best might be more expensive on paper at the start of a season, but the time saved by knowing what you have to do and how to do it will add up over the course of a season or two to more than counterbalance that initial expense. Once the changeover takes place, it’s all gravy – a better show for nothing extra spent – from there. At least until some other producer steals the talent away, or they retire, or you promote them to some other job, which will almost certainly happen within a year. Then it’s a question of hoping that the good stuff rubbed off on the number one assistant, or starting all over again.

And yet, despite the obvious differences between TV shows that the above analysis makes clear, the Standards Of Success against which all television sows are ultimately measured remains unchanged and applicable to all: they are either convincing enough or they are not. Meeting this mark won’t guarantee eligibility for an Emmie, but not doing so will almost certainly guarantee time in the unemployment queue. Whether or not the person ahead of you in line is someone else from the same production often depends on how quickly and ruthlessly changes can be made, and on how much money the studio was hemorrhaging on this turkey. Convince them that the promise of success is still within reach, and the necessary changes have been made, and the show might continue – on strict probation, and probably on a budgetary diet that it can ill-afford.

…and Not All Computer Games are Create Alike, Either

Life isn’t all beer and skittles for those who make computer games, either. It’s often the case that they don’t get paid until the game starts selling, for example; changing that requires some external bankroll, perhaps from a game company that has other successful titles. Even if you do get paid, it may not be the full amount you are owed according to your contract; once again, that might be pending until the money starts coming in. Too many industry horror stories start with developers who believe in a project so much that they sink their own money into it.

Setting that aside, there are several practical hurdles that have to be overcome.

First cab off the rank is Dynamics – have you ever played a computer game with a half-second delay while the program figured out which button you pushed and what you want the game to do? I have, and it’s not fun. The game needs to be instantly responsive – and that means not waiting to load the next screen, either. Yes, that really used to happen! I’ve played some games where you would tell it to save your progress and have time to make a cup of coffee and get a slice of cake before the save was finished – and a similar delay awaited you if you ever needed to restart from that saved position. Nothing – not game-play, not pretty pictures, nor soundtracks – can hold up the Dynamics of the game.

Second comes Pacing – by which I mean the speed at which events unfold within the game. You can’t have patches that are too slow and portions that are overwhelming; you need time for the player to assimilate the state of events and react accordingly.

Third consideration is the Rate Of Progression. Too many games are too slow to progress either at the start or the end; getting the rate of progression right means always promising that the next run will get the player closer to success, if they play as well as they have just done.

So those are things that every game has to get right – but the content of each different game imposes different restrictions and parameters on each of these choices. So every game is already different.

Fourth is a criterion that is similar to where we started with TV: the Difficulty of Creation. The greater the level of originality, especially under the hood, the greater the difficulty of creating the game. More than five years ago, I reviewed the Kickstarter campaign for a computer game in development called Witchmarsh in glowing terms. The game developers had taken the game as far as they could with the funding they were able to tip in, and needed more to finish it. Their campaign was successful, but progress was slower than expected, and false starts numerous. I’m quite sure that the original funds raised will have been depleted long ago, but such is the power of belief that backers still get regular progress reports and those participating are all still working away to make the project a reality. The last update through Twitter was only a week or two back. It has definitely become a labor of love for those working on it; if that were not the case, they would have abandoned it long ago. And, as a labor of love, the developers have gone beyond even the speculative possibilities raised in my article. All of which only adds to the complexity and difficulty.

It’s always harder to break new ground.

The next problem is closely related to the previous ones: the difficulty of play has to be right. I know that sounds like I’m repeating the same things that I discussed earlier, but this is actually an independent variable that has to be closely matched to the increase in difficulty as you get deeper into a game – so this is about the rate of progress that you make, relative to the increase in difficulty. There is, for example, “Reach The Core”, a mining/tunneling vertical scroller that can be a lot of fun at early levels – but there are so many upgrade paths, and they are so poorly explained, that it’s hard to pick the right ones. And as a result, progress starts to slow to a standstill as you get to the more difficult levels – and the game quickly grows boring, thereafter.

A very similar game, but with more responsive controls, better explanations, and more limited ‘improvements’ available, is Mega Drill! (mustn’t forget the exclamation mark). I’ve played this through to the end at least a dozen times, striving to achieve the top rank of success. I finally got there about a month ago, haven’t played it since – but occasionally get the itch to do it again, because it managed to be fun throughout.

Game developers rarely speak in terms of a budget of dollars – their budget is in time, in man-hours, or in lines of code. But it’s a constraint that can be just as hamstringing as any other. I can best illustrate this by talking about a completely different type of software, and a very old computer by modern standards on which it was to run. A change in the requirements required a change to the code, which carried the program executable’s length to just more than an additional page of virtual memory – in effect, the program was now too big to run efficiently on that old computer, which slowed its execution to a crawl. The users were faced with a choice: upgrade to a (gasp) modern 386 PC (which had enough RAM and processing speed to cope with the higher requirements) or trim some of the status messages to recover enough space for the whole thing to load in one gulp. The fastest and quickest and cheapest fix was the latter, but I persuaded their manager that it was a false economy because another change would inevitably come down the pike and put them back over the limit. He chose the most expensive solution – a temporary cutback on the function reporting until a new PC could be obtained, tested, and installed – with the larger version of the program in operation on it. A temporary fix while a more permanent fix was prepared, in other words. They were, at last report, still using that 386 to run that software – 25 years later. For a commercial installation, that’s amazing longevity!

Finally, the most difficult criterion to assess: Game-play. Just like in an RPG, this is king; everything else is subordinated to it, of necessity. And yet, it’s the hardest thing to put your finger on – a game either has great game-play or it doesn’t. And there’s all sorts of nuances to that “doesn’t” – some games miss the mark by more than others. They still score a “fail” on the game-play test, but by a greater or lesser extent – which is in direct proportion to how long the game can be tolerated.

A special case

Spare a thought, too, for those poor souls who are hamstrung at every turn by the nature of the product they are developing – and who nevertheless have to somehow produce a game that is good enough to earn revenue for those paying for the development. I speak, of course, of games in which the game-play is already well-known and innovation is so rare as to be almost unheard-of – gambling games. I don’t care if it’s a poker game, or a slot machine, they must be very easy to code (because all the basic functionality has been developed for you already) and very, very hard to do really well, because it’s all been done before.

Run through our list of factors that define how difficult it is to make a genuine advance on the state of the art – or just create a really playable game. The only real areas that the game developers in this case have to explore are the graphics and the sounds and the special effects. And yet, they are constrained in all those areas by the need not to interfere with the basic game-play.

As you can tell from the disparate approaches reported earlier, sometimes they are reduced to throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Neither Are All RPG Campaigns created Equal!

If every TV show faces unique combinations of tools and challenges, and every computer game faces its own unique combination of tools and challenges, why would anyone expect all RPG Campaigns not to be just as distinctive? There are nine ways in which, even at this general level, each would be distinguishable.

1. Clarity of concept

How clear is the concept at the heart of the campaign? A fuzzy concept permits a game to range all over the place – not necessarily a bad thing – but prevents the concept being a jumping-off point for ideas, and adventures can be wildly inconsistent in direction. A muddy concept is worse, containing internal contradictions that the GM has not resolved; the campaign will eventually tear itself apart. “You are good guy murder hobos” – contradiction alert! “You are all evil, but will be forced to not only work together but in the general interests of society as a whole, for your own survival, advancement, and the achievement of your ambitions” – that’s a fuzzy concept because it has two contradictory ideas (“evil” and “altruistic”), but it resolves this contradiction by providing a reasonable justification for the “out of character” behavior required, so it’s only slightly fuzzy. This was the concept at the heart of my Shards Of Divinity campaign – and it required a redefinition of the different alignments in order to permit “reasonable” game play on the part of otherwise “evil” characters.

2. Strength of concept

This is tied directly to the first criterion in part. It’s a measure of how many original adventure ideas can be spun out of the core concept. You can have a concept that is clear but weak, or one that is clear and strong; I’m not sure that you can have a really fuzzy or muddy concept that is nevertheless strong. So this can be handicapped by the clarity of concept, but is otherwise independent of it.

3. Breadth of development

The more aspects of a campaign are touched by the concept, the greater the breadth of development. Breadth is actually about how the concept has manifested in a campaign plan and in individual adventures and game content; the number of aspects of the campaign touched by the concept is the result of the development of the campaign. This is all about what I often describe as campaign prep, and about the connection between that prep and the core concept(s).

It’s important to distinguish between potential and actual development. Potential is coming up with ideas; Actual is translating those ideas into substance. The latter is what matters, because it’s what it visible to the outside world. I’m sure we’ve all encountered individuals who were great at ideas and terrible at execution…

4. Compelling Plotlines

It doesn’t matter how great or poor your ideas are if all that comes out of them are insipid and uninspired plotlines. You need stories that are going to arrest the player’s attentions and keep them coming back to the campaign’s game table, time after time. Attendance and participation need to be a compulsion.

5. Immersive Reality

Believe it or not, it is possible to have a really immersive reality without compelling plotlines, and vice-versa. In the first case, everyone likes the idea of playing, but the adventures never live up to the anticipation; the execution falls flat. If you have compelling plotlines but no immersive reality, game-play becomes a purely intellectual exercise, an exercise in wits. There’s probably a 50-50 chance that the campaign will collapse into a players-vs-GM conflict at regular intervals. Neither outcome is really all that stable or likely to last.

Another way of looking at the relationship between these elements of uniqueness is that 1 constrains 2; 1 and 2 permit or inhibit 3; 3 makes 4 and 5 possible.

6. Interactive Characters

I’m not just talking about PCs or NPCs here; this is the capacity for interaction of the totality of all characters in the game. If your concept and development ensures that the NPCs are more interesting than the PCs, the game is in trouble; it should always be the other way around. It’s great to have NPCs that are fascinating for the players to interact with, but the PCs are the stars of the show.

Beyond the degree of fascination they can hold, you also have to contemplate how much fun there is to be had from the characters interacting. I have – once in more than 30 years – had a 4-hour game session in which every word was said in character, and all that happened was the PCs interacting with each other. Once. Every other time I’ve come close, someone has broken character for a side conversation, or game mechanics have intruded, or I’ve had to provide ex-cathedra narrative.

On of the smartest things I ever did was give the PC’s headquarters in my superhero campaign an AI, because it means that lots of ex-cathedra narrative can be handled as dialogue and interaction between this NPC and a PC!

7. Game System Compromise

No game system is ever perfect. Nor is any game system ever perfectly suited to any given campaign. Thus the game system compromises the potential of a campaign in two ways – and choosing another game system can be better or worse in either respect. My goal with the original Fumanor campaign was to capture some of the flavor of Rolemaster, but actually translating the game from 2nd Ed D&D into the ICE game system was a total nightmare. It looked good on paper, but in execution it was close to unplayable. 3rd Ed came to rescue on that occasion!

8. Playability Compromise

Every campaign is further compromised by the to make it practical for play. Without this need, you could use House Rules to tweak and modify every rule in a game system, trying to achieve a perfect match between campaign and game system.

9. Expression Of Complexity

At the heart of every campaign are some complex ideas, whether the GM recognizes and understands them or not. “Ethics and Relative Morality in a world of Absolutes” was part of the complexity built into Shards Of Divinity. These are deep waters, and we never got to do much more than soak in them from time to time in the campaign – but if it had proceeded to its planned completion, there would have been some very hard questions for the PCs to answer, with the fate of worlds riding on their answers. Which is fine if you know there’s a right answer, and have some hope of determining what that is – but when you aren’t sure there is any right answer, only degrees of “wrong”?

Demands of an RPG are arguably higher than those of the other media forms, but the tools available are more limited. Again, it’s no wonder that some form of augmentation is desirable.

Mastering The Facility Of Augmentation

This article is finally winding it’s way toward a conclusion (and toward 10,000 words, which I think it will get to first!) It’s time to look at the practical measures that can be taken by a GM to employ these augmentation tools.

The right tech, used correctly

Find out what tools you need and learn to use them. That could be google image search plus an art editor – I use Krita – plus an image display program, the Fastone Image Viewer. Those, or their equivalents, are the minimum for really using images – or it could be something else for the implementation of music and/or sound effects.

As a side-note, I use DuckDuckGo more often than Google these days, but still use both. DDG is easier to work with when what you want is the image and not the website that the image comes from; but occasionally you come across an image that is what you want but that the server hosting it won’t open for you for some reason. I use “Search Google For Image” from the right-click context menu directly from inside DDG to look for an alternative source – sometimes I don’t find one, but usually I do. Interestingly, the two search engines have relatively few results in common – so if I don’t find “US Army Dental Surgeon 1936” (or whatever) in one, I’ll look in the other before trying a new search term.

Timing

Test, under conditions that are as much like the ones you will face at the game table as possible. Time those tests. Rehearse, especially dealing with high-risk problems like accidentally closing the folder with the file that you wanted to double-click on (it happens!)

The Limitations Of Representation

Identify the ways in which your representation of the game environment limits you, and seek solutions to reduce the scope and extent of those restrictions. Make your minis and maps more user-friendly, in other words! And don’t forget to think outside the box – See The Bigger They Are, The Bigger The Headache: The Proxemics Of Scale and 52+ Miniature Miracles: Taking Battlemaps the extra mile for some ideas to get you started.

The dangers of expectation

Do something once, and it works, and your players will expect it to be present every time, and to work on all of those times. Do something once and it doesn’t work, and your players will expect to never see it again. Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration, I have to admit, but the sentiment is correct.

The problem comes with the commitment of prep time. Sometimes, an enhancement activity is simply unsustainable given the available prep time.

It’s worth remembering, though, that you will get faster with any tech that you’re just getting to know, in part because you’ll learn what you need to do and how to do it more efficiently, and in part because you’ll work smarter, not harder, without even realizing it. Things like designing your adventures to accommodate the assumption of whatever enhancement you have chosen to implement.

The Constraints Of Prep

Finally, remember that this IS just an enhancement most of the time – you can live without it if you have to. Managing prep time is about prioritization and time management, and the more professionally you approach the scheduling of what you need to do, the more successful you will be. There are four posts related to game prep that I particularly want to emphasize:

• Decisions Of Plot: Encounter Planning and Prep
• Like sand through the fingers: Time waste and Campaign Prep
• Fire Fighting, Systems Analysis, and RPG Problem Solving Part 2 of 3: Prioritization which is all about breaking big problems into manageable ones and prioritizing the important bits.
• To Every Creator, An Optimum Budget?

Conclusion

The use of technology-based resources can enhance games or simply discardable color, but they can be disproportionately expensive in demands on the GM. If these practicalities are taken into account, and media employed as a supplementary augmentation of what the GM is doing anyway, or used to substitute for prep-work the GM would otherwise need to perform, they can be worth the effort.

It’s essential to be critical in choosing what to represent, and what not to. (more)

As much as 1/3 of my prep time in most of my campaigns is employed in searching out appropriate visual representations that I can show the players. The typical day’s play involves 20-40 such representations (depending on the campaign). Almost 1/3 of them need to be edited in some way, and some require massive alteration requiring hours of effort. Occasionally, one needs to be created from scratch, often a still-more time-expensive activity. Yet, the sue of such imagery reduces the writing workload by more than half – call it by 2/3, so I get 50% more prep done in a given time-frame.

This is an augmentation of my capabilities as a GM that is worth the price. But it needs to be carefully managed, and rigidly controlled, lest it get out of hand. There are times when I still need to rely on the imaginations of my players, and do it old-school.

But that’s the secret to all forms of reality augmentation in TTRPGs: planning, flexibility, and discipline. All things that any good GM should be practicing already.

Whew! Finished at last! It’s almost 5 1/2 hours late in posting, but – given that it’s roughly twice as long as a normal post – that’s not too bad!

This is a post in three parts, all gathered together right here for your convenience.

You see, I was very rushed for time when completing last week’s article on exotic creatures for TTRPGs, and almost immediately, afterthoughts started coming to me – things that would have been added if I’d had a few more hours.

But, if I had done that, some of Part 2 and all of Part 3 of this article would have gone into my “too short” file, and never seen the light of day (or VDU, to be more accurate). So, serendipity strikes again!

It would probably be helpful if you have at least skimmed that previous post, especially the sections “Skin”, “Sinew”, “Bone”, “The Reskinning”, and “Fur, Hair, and Textures”. This is roughly the first quarter of the article, so that shouldn’t take too long. If you don’t have time, you can still read what’s below, but might not get as much out of it. I’ll keep this post to about 1,000 words less than usual to leave time for everyone to catch up or refresh their recollections.

Further Thoughts On Exotic Creations, Part 1

I need to start with a couple of links that I was remiss in omitting. The first is to the previous time I looked at this specific subject in any detail – more than ten years ago – which was in Building The Perfect Beast: A D&D 3.5 online monster generator when I reviewed a software tool for the creation of NPCs/Creatures and used it to construct a species, the Leonines, that I needed for my Shards Of Divinity campaign.

Next, I should have pointed readers looking for further information to my three-part series from 2013, Creating Ecology Based Random Encounters. Part one focuses on the “random encounters” part of the subject, Part two looks at creating smarter “random encounter” tables by creating a simplified ecology that the table contents then reflect, and Part 3 expands the principles to encompass Urban & Dungeon encounters and other special circumstances (“wandering monsters”).

Finally, I should have pointed people to an article looking at incorporating a specific and very popular breed of creature into a game world: A Population Of Dinosaurs and the impact on RPG ecologies. This relatively technical and math-heavy article focuses on a way to calculate how many species or variants of a base creature there will be, revealing some surprising and very important factors for the GM to consider along the way. For example, I calculate that there were probably 33,100 species of dinosaur, of which we have (correctly) identified about 666.

Let’s go back to that first article, though. Paul of Dingle Games has been a valued supporter of Campaign Mastery ever since it was published, and we still send a steady stream of traffic his way (and get a steady trickle back). The final link that I should have included in the previous article was to Dingle’s Games.

So, why are the generators there better than any others around? Because they let you choose the development path you desire for the creation. It’s done the way you would do it with pencil and paper. And you can change your mind. A lot of other generators let you select options but not see what the effects are.

Currently, for free, you get access to the NPC Generator to a Max 5th Level (OGL / 3.5); a separate NPC Generator, again to a Max of 5th Level (Pathfinder); a Treasure Generator (OGL / 3.5); an Encounter Generator (OGL / 3.5); and a separate Encounter Generator (Pathfinder RPG).

If you subscribe, the limits are raised from 5th level to 30th (OGL / 3.5) or 20th (Pathfinder), and multiclassing is permitted. And you can Save & Edit Unlimited NPCs / Monsters, and a whole lot more. Most significantly, you get access to the Monster Creator enabling creation of your own monsters and templates (Both OGL / 3.5 and PFRPG). Currently, you can get 30 non-consecutive days of access for $15.

But one of the most valuable assets that you get access to is Paul himself – if there’s a bug or a problem, or a request for an addition, he’ll put it on his to-do list. Though there only seem to be bug fixes since 2014.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m familiar enough with the 3.5 game system that I can translate any creature or character created using it to whatever is needed more-or-less on the fly. So this is a page that’s definitely worth your bookmarking.

Further Thoughts On Exotic Creations, Part 2

The process described in last week’s article is all well and good when you have a clear concept in mind – but what if you don’t? What if you only know that you need something, but have no idea what that might be?

The answer, of course, is to create a clear concept, and then use it as your guide through the process. But that is usually a lot easier said than done.

Fortunately, I’ve offered many tools for solving this problem (and for solving many similar ones, as well).

• Parts 2, 3, and 4 of the Characterization Puzzle series contain three such tools: The Thumbnail Method, The Inversion Principle, and The Window Shopping Technique. The first part looks at NPC characterizations in general, and the final part is about how to select from amongst the three tools. Of these tools, for the most part (more on that, later), The Thumbnail Method and The Inversion Principle are the most easily adapted to the creation of Creatures.
• I offered a fourth NPC generator in Inversions Attract: Another Quick NPC Generator. Again, it needs a little adaption to be used for creating Monsters instead of Characters, but the basic principles still stand.
• A fifth technique that can be adapted is described in Backstory Boxes: Directed Creativity. I generally use it for generating character and campaign Backstories, but there’s no reason you can’t use it in a more focused manner.
• Finally, my 6-part series on Writer’s Block is chock-full of techniques for getting through this and similar problems.

So, simply employ one or another of these techniques and the world will fawn at your feet, right? If only it was that easy!

Before you can find your way to the right answer, you need to ask the right question. And that’s not easy if you don’t know what the right question is about!

Normally, your subconscious identifies the question and the answer pops into your head as the “clear concept” that was assumed in last week’s article. The absence of such a concept is a sure indicator that this process has gone astray – and the process itself is so simple that there aren’t many places to look for the problem. If you’ve got the right question, the techniques given above will help you with some free association from which to identify an answer, and you can proceed from there, so the second of the two possible problems has been dealt with.

The Fundamental Question

What you need, in order to identify the leading question, the “right” question, is to answer the still more fundamental question, what is the purpose of this encounter?

There are some basic answers to this question: Information, Action, Roleplay, Misdirection, Resource Gain, Resource Loss, Intimidation, and Specific-Function.

• Information usually means giving the PCs information, but it can also mean giving some NPC the chance to acquire information about the PCs. The first is, essentially, a roleplaying encounter; the second is, at its’ heart, an Action encounter.
• Action – Some players require a regular dose of action in order to really enjoy their gaming. Even if your players number none of this type, genre and/or realism will still demand the occasional action sequence. Action is targeted either at the group as a whole or at a single individual, even if the whole group are involved in the Action. Your key to unlocking the concept you need is to find an idea that will especially impact on the target – so that can be something that does lots of damage in one hit, or a number of somethings that do less damage individually, or that has an interaction with a specific trait of the target PC. An encounter to “get the Mage to use up his Sleep Spells” or “Make the Telepath run short of Psionic Potential” or whatever is a perfectly valid expression of the ‘right question’.
• Roleplay is a far broader category than most people realize. The mere sight of a particular creature can inform the party, causing a roleplaying interaction between themselves. An encounter with a “wanted” poster can qualify as a roleplaying encounter, in the same way. Repeated attacks by creatures with a particular vulnerability – once that vulnerability is identified – are a strong hint that none of the other local residents can target that vulnerability, instructing the party on the best tactics to employ. An encounter with a “wanted” poster can qualify as a roleplaying encounter, in the same way. The purpose of the encounter is to put certain information or choices in front of the PCs (and hence the players) but it doesn’t have to be as straightforward as someone answering or asking questions. So the valid “right question” is, “What encounter can deliver these facts, choices, or emotive directions (as appropriate) to the PCs in an interesting manner?”
• Misdirection If you can provide direction with an encounter, you can provide misdirection – especially if the whole encounter is planned in advance by some third party (in-game).
• Resource Gain – the purpose of this type of encounter is to bolster the PCs ability to handle future encounters (or to hobble it, if someone especially clever is manipulating things behind the scenes). For example, in my Shards campaign, you gained a huge bonus to scrying/divination abilities if the target had something belonging to the caster for the spell to focus on, or vice-versa. When a mage wanted to be able to find someone easily, he either employed a thief to grab something personal from the target, or arranged a ‘chance encounter’ to sell the PCs something. Players often assess the viability of a potion, they rarely think to assess the container that it comes in. What you need in this case is a Justification for the resource that is to be gained to be found/gained as a result of the encounter. The “right question” is, therefore, “What type of creature might have such a resource and not need it during an encounter with the PCs?”
• Resource Loss Similarly, there can be encounters that are designed to do nothing more than bleed resources from the party. The simplest and most common example is inflicting hit point losses on the party to use up their healing capabilities for the day. The often-neglected part of the requirements are that the party not be able to replenish those resources by simply resting. The loss, in other words, has to “stick” – unless your purpose is simply to give one character a chance to demonstrate that he has such abilities, in which case you aren’t concerned with replenishment. The “right question” is usually, though, “What type of creature would require the party to use such a resource and have the loss ‘stick’?” This doesn’t have to be as tricky as it sounds – consider an encounter with a creature that the PCs can defeat, but which will inflict enough harm that resources will be depleted in the process, then have the party discover amongst the creature’s effects a patrol schedule that shows that pausing to rest will result in an encounter with many of this creature, or even worse, with a group of something tougher. Sometimes, it’s not what the encounter is with, it’s how you use it!
• Intimidation encounters are intended to convince the players that a particular direction or approach is too tough for them, at least at the moment. For example, a bunch of goblins fake up a series of Demonic skulls and mount them on poles, with warnings (in some language the Goblins have learned that is used by something tough, such as Bugbears) to “Turn back” or “Here be Demons”, etc. An illusory demon of high type completes the intimidation – so long as the PCs don’t see through it. This might well result in the Red-Finger Goblin Clan steering prospective attackers to the camp of the Grass-Foot Goblin Clan and leaving the Red-Fingers alone. Note that the DM is not trying to steer the PCs – he doesn’t care if they press on, regardless – it’s an NPC who is responsible for the “Intimidation Encounter”. A kingdom that taxes those on it’s out-lands disproportionately highly (while secretly subsidizing them) will create the appearance of poverty in a “buffer zone” around their wealth, perhaps persuading potential thieves and marauders to look elsewhere for a quick gold piece. This is just as much an “intimidation” encounter as the earlier goblin example. The right question is, “What could reasonably be there to cause the party to go in direction X instead of Y?”
• Specific-Function encounters are a bit of a catch-all category for whatever’s left – they are designed to achieve some specific effect on the party or the environment. For example, you might want to force the Wizard to cast a lightning bolt for some reason, or you want to inflict a specific kind of harm on a specific character, or you want to trigger some change in the environment that will either help or hinder the PCs going forward. Usually, if you are far enough along in your thinking to have a specific function need in mind, you will already have formulated a correct “right question” – “How do I get character A to do B?” or “How do I do B to character A?”.

The key is to identify what you need the encounter to do, either at a metaplot level or at a game level, and then design the encounter to have that effect. If you need to, use the idea-generation techniques listed earlier to devise an answer to the specific form of the general question, “What can achieve what I need the encounter to do?”, then use the techniques of last week’s article to construct what you have devised.

Which brings me back to the caveats applied to some of those solutions. The techniques are great at characterization of NPCs – that being their purpose – but they can be used to create solutions to some of the specific types of problem described above. They are not so useful outside of that limitation.

That still covers much more range than many people will realize. Just as personality traits are often described using animalistic terminology, so personality traits can be applied to describe the natures of such creatures. “Playful”, “Sly”, “Subtle”, “Sneaky”, “Cowardly” etc can be used to define the personality of a new creation. You then need only to choose a social structure that either reflects or encourages this trait, and you are on your way.

Further Thoughts On Exotic Creations, Part 3

I was reflecting on what I wanted to say in the preceding section when a still broader thought presented itself for consideration. It started with something more specific, though.

Sometimes it’s more useful to make choices guided by a desired interaction with one or more specific PCs. For example, you might want to shine the spotlight on a character that is due for some “love”. Designing an encounter whose primary purpose is to give that character something important to contribute achieves this purpose. For example, a creature that shunts its’ prey into some kind of Shadow Realm in which the ability to attack is available in direct proportion to how well you can hide in shadows – an ability with which it is a master – would thrust the rogue into the spotlight, while leaving most Wizards and Fighters and Clerics flailing, unable to land a solid blow with weapon or spell.

In time, that reminded me of a maxim that I have long used: Encounter design should be driven by verisimilitude and plot function, first and foremost.

Plot Function is a metagame consideration; I make no bones about it. But it’s also a pathway to identifying the traits that you need an encounter to have, a pathway to function. Where that pathway intersects with the capabilities of one or more characters, the very nature of the encounter compels the creature to carry out their Plot Function in the meta-realm.

This is as abstract as it gets. It suggests that Every encounter should have a Plot Function, i.e. an identifiable purpose within the adventure. Even if that purpose is only to delay the PCs, or create a sense of Realism, or sustain an impression of the game world, or fill time in the real world because the GM hasn’t been able to get as much prep done as he needed to – and was able to recognize this fact in time to do something about it.

Identify the need, the plot function, and you are one step closer to creating an encounter that will carry out that plot function and satisfy that need for you. Last week’s article, and the links and content above, give you the exact tools that you need.

A Broader Tool

But it’s an even more powerful way of viewing the whole encounter situation than that.

It is sometimes said (in fact, I said it last game session) that “No GM’s plan survives contact with the Player Characters” – more in jest than in seriousness, it must be admitted, though there’s an uncomfortable grain of truth buried in that joke somewhere.

If you have designed your encounters with a specific, articulable, Plot Function in mind, you can avoid some of the worst of that unpalatable aphorism, and become less inclined to dictate the path of the PCs with railroad tracks: because you know what the purpose was, if it doesn’t work out the way you wanted to, you can identify the consequences (and do something about them) more readily.

From the GM’s point of view, this failed plot function is but the first domino to fall, with the next being whatever the reason was that this plot function was considered necessary to the overall plot. That in turn will have a consequence, connecting it to the next domino in the chain.

When you can identify the end result of a chain reaction, you can determine whether you need to stop it, or can let it play out. The results may not be what you originally envisaged, but that’s all right – they don’t have to be. By giving you a tool to understand what the ultimate consequence will be, you begin the process of assimilating that destination into your thoughts and planning. And that’s the first step with being able to cope with it, from a game/campaign standpoint. Often, you will find that it wasn’t so critical, after all. Much of the time, even when it is that critical to the broader plot, you can identify a future point where the chain reaction can be snuffed out – its always better to do so in a different adventure, because that lets the PCs enjoy the fruits of their success.

The more you get used to doing things, to thinking about things, in this way, the less stress you will feel when the PCs depart from your planned script, and the more readily you will be able to just keep on playing, taking events in your stride.

It might still be true that “No GM’s plan survives contact with the Player Characters”, but you won’t care. Whatever plans you had were just a first draft, after all, to evolve in response to the changed in-game circumstances. This is liberating in more ways than the obvious one – because this loosens the reigns of prep demands, and that leaves more time for the things that really matter. Every aspect of your GMing can benefit from this change in perspective!

Which is the last place that I expected this subject to lead, when I started writing last week…

Of late, I’ve had to create fantastic creatures for several of my campaigns, and despite the clear and obvious differences between the game systems employed, I found myself struck by a number of similarities in the process employed.

When I tried to articulate those similarities for an article here at Campaign Mastery, it refused to gel into a coherent picture.

Now, I’ve been at this game long enough to recognize that when that happens, it means that you are on the edge of a fairly profound breakthrough in terms of process and awareness, so I tried again.

The discussion promptly skewed off into side-discussions that were ultimately irrelevant to the core question. So I scrapped it again, and started work again, from a slightly different perspective.

Which took me back to experiencing problem #1.

To cut a long story short, I had to discard a few assumptions that had been part of my approach to creating new creatures for almost a decade before I discovered a logical path through the process at a conceptual level.

Almost immediately, the results began to pay big dividends. In my superhero campaign, the PCs are about to have an encounter. I’d been dropping some hints as to the nature of that encounter as they played through the previous game session, and thought I had a good handle on what it was going to be. The only problem: not only was the nature of this encounter fairly predictable, given the circumstances and environment, but the hints and clues presented only made it more so. True, I had a plot twist in mind that would have put a new spin on the encounter, but that would have altered the result only in details, and not in kind. The predictability would remain.

This new perspective permitted me to reappraise the whole concept of the creatures to be encountered, while remaining true to the hints I had been dropping, and to produce an infinitely more interesting choice of creature – and one that the players will never see coming, despite the clues that have been given them.

So far as I am concerned, this validates the conceptual framework involved, so today’s article will offer it for the consideration and understanding of my readers.

Skin

I hadn’t been writing for Campaign Mastery for very long before I was introduced to the concept of re-skinning creatures from published sources to create new varieties of critter to encounter. If you factor in ad-hoc translations between game systems, this was the foundation of the approach that I have been using ever since.

In essence, Re-skinning means taking an existing stat block and set of abilities (defined within a set of game mechanics) from an existing creature and wrapping a new concept or idea around them. The name and some of the flavor text change, but the core mechanics remain as per the original – but because the trappings of the encounter have changed, and the concept of the encounter is different, the players never recognize the original model.

Yeah, right. If the players never recognize the original, it’s either because they’re lazy, or because there are a great many similar creatures that could have been the foundation. Because it can advise them as to the tactics to employ, they have a vested interest in making the effort, and that begins to defeat the purpose.

On top of that, there are the sociological problems that come with re-skinning. These are a little more difficult to explain, but I’ll do my best: it’s rare to throw away all the flavor text, that would constitute reinventing the wheel; but also preserved are the underlying assumptions that manifest in that flavor text, and sometimes those can be incongruous with the creatures as they manifest as a social structure. The distaff consequence is that you may have thrown something away that you should have kept.

In a nutshell, either way, re-skinning assumes that the resulting creatures as they manifest within your game will posses a homogeneity and consistency that makes rational sense – and that’s not always the case. Heck, it’s not always the case with the source material – though most of the monster source-books these days are far better than the AD&D monster manual (or worse, the creatures from Tunnels & Trolls).

Frankenstein’s monsters rarely posses more clarity of focus than the source donors.

It’s almost enough to cause me to recommend that the social structure of the creature should be the dominant factor in choice of the creature to be re-skinned – but, while that solves the consistency issue, it will rarely yield creature you want, even when re-skinned.

That’s because most GMs look at creatures from a game mechanics perspective first and foremost, and not as literary creations. To achieve what we want, if we are to start with this foundation, we have to look beyond mere re-skinning to replacing sinew and possibly even bone.

Sinew

The term “re-skinning” is highly appropriate, and embodies the problems that result – because what we’re talking about when we use the term is an act of superficial creation.

And if you only get the superficialities right, there’s a slim chance that the substance underneath will match the re-imagined surface details.

The ‘Sinew’ and ‘Bone’ of a creature contains the abilities that characterize it, both those explicitly defined within game mechanics and those merely implied by terms such as social organization, and the creature’s stat block contents. Everything, in other words, that remains unchanged in traditional re-skinning.

If we are to base our creature on something with the correct social organization, some of this material will be compatible with the substance underneath, and some will not. The material that is compatible is the ‘bone’, the core social constructs of the species and the abilities, both defined and assumed, that make that social structure a reasonable one for the target creation.

So the first step is to choose a creature that has the right social structure, and the second is to determine what parts of the description must be retained and what should be replaced so that our desired “skin” fits.

This often involves rather more analysis than is compatible with the quick-and-dirty “pick a monster from the book and make it fit” approach that is often recommended by proponents of re-skinning – or, at least, that’s how it might seem at first glance. The reality is just a little different – so long as you keep the core concept that you want to create in mind, the reality is that you can do this almost as quickly as you can glance and make a tick or a cross.

Except, of course, that you don’t want to mark up your source-books – if no other reason than the possibility that you will want to use the same source creature in multiple different “skins”. Nor are abilities etc often indexed, even numerically. So it will take slightly longer while you make notes.

Once you have the essential abilities selected, you then have to consider the bone.

Bone

The bone of a creature, the skeletal structure, starts with any template and the size and the number of Hit Dice or equivalent.

These decisions are fundamental to the capabilities of the end creation, so much so that some people have suggested that getting them right should be the starting point of any re-skinning process.

• Template: is this correct, and appropriate? If so, then any elements that the template provides elsewhere – which may be bonuses, stats, abilities, and more flavor text – also need to be conserved. If not, then those become voids that may be self-closing or may need to be patched.
• Size: in game mechanics, a creature’s size has relatively minimal impact. Psychologically it’s a different story; greater size justifying greater stat values, more hit dice, more abilities and more potent expressions of those abilities. But the importance of size is even greater than this already-murky relationship suggests; size is inextricably linked to behavior in ways that few understand very well, and one of the ultimate expressions of that behavior is social structure, which we have already determined. It follows that any size adjustment needs to be reflected in both the elements that we have already chosen to retain and any that we have marked as needing separate consideration.
• Of course, the relationship between size and Hit Dice (or points spend in a point-based system) must then be considered. It’s impossible to do this until any contributions from template and size are earmarked, because those are only indirectly part of this assessment. In a nutshell, the number of abilities typically goes up with increases in Hit Dice (sometimes in a linear relationship, sometimes not), and any already-included abilities including those from templates etc will increase in potency. It follows that if you are going to reduce the number of Hit Dice, you will need to reduce the breadth of abilities and may need to reduce the potency of those not so eliminated – whether these have been tagged to be retained or not.
• These considerations may also dictate the incorporation or modification of additional flavor text and explanatory material within the creature description.

The Re-skinning

Progress report: So far, we have chosen a template that reflects the social organization that is appropriate to the creation being assembled, marked for retention any flavor text that relates to it and any abilities that justify or reflect it. We have considered and either retained or removed the impacts of any templates that are part of this source, possibly replacing them with a different template completely; we have considered the size of the source creature and adjusted that to match the creation’s desired characteristics, reshaping the abilities and stats of the source creature accordingly; we have then considered the HD that do not derive or reflect size or template and scaled the results up or down accordingly, altering the number and potency of abilities accordingly.

So we’ve made major strides; in fact, by a process of elimination, we have eliminated from consideration everything that should not be impacted by a re-skinning, and scaled everything to a level appropriate for the re-skinning. In a nutshell, we know what we’re keeping and what we can replace.

It’s also been a lot more work than a traditional simple “re-skinning”.

In effect, the totality of the original source creature has been split into constituent elements which sum to provide those sources, and individually tweaked and marked as independent of the re-skinning process. Everything that’s left can now be re-skinned. as usual.

The best approach to doing so is to select a secondary source, preferably one that is already at the appropriate scale and has no templates to complicate the picture. Considering this secondary source one item at a time, answer one simple question: does this conflict with the material already established?

• If it conflicts, it needs to excluded, leaving a blank slot to be filled by the GM.
• If it doesn’t, it gets incorporated directly into the creation.

You then need to incorporate a description for the new creature.

Fur, Hair and Textures

The final steps are to fill in any blanks, if necessary by importing something from still a third source, and then read over the totality and make sure that it holds water. Because the results are polishing and usually even more superficial than a traditional re-skinning, I think if this as applying the final cosmetics – fur, hair, and texture – to the creation.

Part of this process is totaling the various elements that you have selected into the whole that belongs to the creation that you have assembled.

Making your life simpler

The way you annotate your work can make your future life a lot simpler. Rather than taking the time to write everything out, you can simply refer yourself to the source material, especially when it comes to abilities, together with any adjustments. The results are a list of bullet points that capture the entirety of that part of the description:

STAT BLOCK XXX ## notes, other stats eg HD and HP XXX ## notes, XXX ## notes, XXX ## notes, XXX ## notes, XXX ## notes, ABILITIES Ability Name, ability citation, any adjustment; Ability Name, ability citation, any adjustment; Ability Name, ability citation, any adjustment;   Ability Name, ability citation, any adjustment; Ability Name, ability citation, any adjustment;   Ability Name, ability citation, any adjustment; Ability Name, ability citation, any adjustment; Ability Name, ability citation, any adjustment; Ability Name, ability citation, any adjustment; FLAVOR TEXT Block 3 Physical Description   Block 1 Social Description   Block 2 Other Description

A couple of explanatory comments about the above generic example:

• Note the separation of Abilities into three blocks – those from the source creature (bone), those from templates (sinew), and those from the second (or third) source creatures or created by the GM. This makes further adjustments and variations easier to implement.
• Note also the sequence of passages of flavor text at the bottom, which are numbered in the sequence of their generation but presented in a more typical and useful sequence. Each of these would (in reality) be one or more paragraphs.

There’s nothing inherently “wrong” with the concept of re-skinning. It’s when too many shortcuts are taken that problems begin to present themselves.

An Example

The GM has an idea: Giant Seahorses that are akin to underwater-dwelling oriental dragons. The only creature source-books he has available is the Pathfinder (1st edition) Bestiary and Bestiary 2.

The Sinew

First problem: the GM has no idea of the normal social organization of seahorses, so he can’t use that as a guide to the social organization of his Dracohorses, but he’s fairly certain that the standard Dragon social models won’t fit. After reflecting on the choices, he decides to let the size be his guide, and to base the creatures on marine life of equivalent size: Whales. In particular, he likes the notion of these creatures swimming in pods.

He also likes the notion that this species is sentient but uses this sentience merely to construct elaborate fiction, communicated in song – not something that’s mentioned in the Bestiary 2 entry for Whales, but that the GM is bringing in from the outside. He theorizes that they incorporate real events and navigational references as they are experienced, and that his Dracohorses would be able to navigate simply by recalling the story describing the route. This requires that they somehow tag their stories with markers that differentiate real experiences from fiction creation.

Reading over the Whale entry, he starts listing things that he thinks would carry over. Gargantuan, yes. Initiative +2: no. Blindsight, yes, low-light vision yes, perception +23 – to be unpacked, it seems high. +18 natural AC, no. Swim speed 40′, to be improved. Tail slap, needs more thought. Bite, no. Capsize attack – needs more thought. Stats – extremely high STR – to be reduced. High Con, yes. Average Wis, yes. Low Int and Cha – no. Can’t be tripped, yes. Feats: diehard, yes; great fortitude, no; improved bull rush; no; improved initiative, no; iron will, yes; power attack, no; skill focus (perception), yes. Which begins to answer the perception question from earlier. Skills, perception, yes, swimming, yes. Racial modifier +4 perception – no. CR 10, HP 15d8+90 – the +90 is from CON, so that will be a yes. The 15d8, and CR 10, maybe not – the first seems high relative to the second, and must be due to the size. That means that if the CR increases (which seems likely), the HD will also increase, at a x1.5 factor.

If I trim out all the “no” answers from that litany, I’m left with: Gargantuan, Blindsight, low-light vision, perception +19, Swim speed 40’+, Stats – high STR and Con, Average Wis, yes. Can’t be tripped, diehard, iron will, skill focus (perception), yes. Skills, perception, yes, swimming, yes. HP +90 (CON) at 15 HD from CR 10. There are a couple of maybes: Tail slap, and Capsize attack.

That tells the GM that he needs to think some more about his creations’ attack modes. He realizes that he’s been thinking about draconic breath weapons, but those don’t make a lot of sense underwater. Reading up on the Capsize special attack, he decides that his creature is to appear far more delicate than a whale, which is a blunt instrument in comparison; that says that the capsize attack is a no. He rather likes the thought of the tail slap being expanded into an area attack, a sweep through a range of hexes attacking multiple targets, but realizes that he will need some custom rules to cover the idea, which means that as written for the whale, the answer is no.

That’s all sinew, and a starting point for Bone.

The Bone

Bone consists of Template, Size, HD, consequent impacts on ability slots and potency, and any flavor text to be imported from these sources.

The Template

Whales use the Animal creature type, which the intention to increase INT rules out immediately. Instead, the GM wants to apply the Dragon template. That has a number of profound implications:

• HD: d8 becomes d12.
• Base Attack Bonus equal to total HD instead of 3/4 of HD. With whale at 15HD, this is a +4 to all attack totals.
• Creation keeps the good Fort and Reflex saves and upgrades the Will save from Poor to Good, to boot.
• Skill points increase by 4 per HD.
• Acrobatics is no longer treated as a Class Skill. Climb, Fly, Perception, Stealth and Swim are still treated that way. Added to the Class Skills list are Appraise, Bluff, Craft, Diplomacy, Heal, Intimidate, Knowledge (all), Linguistics, Sense Motive, Spellcraft, Survival, and Use Magical Device. However, many of these make no sense in terms of an underwater creature – Craft and Use Magical Device are particularly problematic, and Appraise and Survival are dubious, as are any knowledges related purely to inland/surface world conditions.
• Lose the restriction to INT 1-2.
• Add Darkvsion 60′ – except that we already have Blindsight from the Whale, so this seems to be redundant.
• Lose the Alignment restriction. However, some flavor of Neutral is probably still appropriate.
• Lose the Lack of treasure. However, it makes more sense if this remains as an added attribute to the finished creation.
• Weapons proficiencies are less restricted, especially if the Dragon can assume humanoid form. In this case, it can’t. The important thing is that if the Creation has a Breath Weapon described as a natural weapon, it is automatically proficient in its use.
• Lose the ability to be trained to wear armor.
• Add Immunity to Magic Sleep effects and Paralysis effects.
• The flavor text associated with the “Dragon” template doesn’t really fit – “reptile-like” isn’t right, and the wings don’t make a lot of sense in the context of the Dracohorse.

There’s a lot of things that appear to be common to most dragons but are not listed as part of the template. To find them, you need to turn to page 90, and the entry details on Dragons:

• Age Category Table: In general, this should be applicable to the Dracohorse. However, sea creatures generally mature faster and live longer than terrestrial creatures, so the “Age in Years” column probably needs some adjustment: 0-1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-10, 11-20, 21-120, 121-360, 361-600, 601-900, 901-1200, 1201-1800, and 1801+ would seem more appropriate.
• The Ability Scores Table: We’ve already looked at the stats of a Whale in generic terms. The question is, do those adjustments fit the Draconic table, and if so, what are the “Base” scores for a Dracohorse? That requires an age category assumption, that we’re comparing adult with adult.
  • The Whale has STR 38, but we’ve already said that we want to dial that back. However, page 292 of The Bestiary gives a base STR for Gargantuan creatures of 34 (and a base DEX of 6, a base CON of 22, which we’ll get to in due course), so if we take that off, we get a STR improvement of just 4, while an adult Dragon gets base+14 – which comes to STR 48, not a reduction at all. Which means that any further reduction has to be balanced with an increase that we can apply elsewhere. So let’s adjust the whale base STR by -10 for our creation, giving a total of 40 and a racial Base of 26 after size adjustment.
  • The Whale has DEX 6, equal to the base value for creatures of this size. Dragons of adult age get Base-4 Dex, which suggests a DEX of just 2. That doesn’t fit with the view we have of nimble, maneuverable sea horses (albeit giant and draconic ones) – so let’s use that entire +10, and +6 besides, boosting the base. That gives us a DEX of 18 and a racial base value of 22. It also means that we have to find a -6 adjustment somewhere.
  • The Whale has a CON of 23, which is one better than the base CON for size of 22. Adult Dragons get a CON 8 better than the base – but we’ve already said that this CON seems about right to us, so dropping the base for the Dracohorse by 8 not only pays the 6 we owe, but gives us +2 to apply elsewhere. That gives a CON of 23, unchanged, and a base CON of 15.
  • The Whale has am INT of 2, to which it is limited by the Animal Template (that no longer applies). Dragons of adult age get an INT of Base+6 – so even if we leave the base at 2, the INT would rise to 8. That doesn’t seem enough, but applying the +2 left over from CON gets us up to a total of 10. Still not quite enough – Dragons are notorious for being smarter than they look – but it’s close. I think increasing the base to 6 – another +2 on top of the CON-derived adjustment – is good enough. So that’s INT 12, and INT Base of 6.
  • The Whale has a WIS of 11, which we have already said seems about right. On reflection, it might even be a point or two too high – or too low. Dragons of adult age get base +6, and while that fits the general perception of dragons, it’s rather too high for this creature – besides, I already know that I’m going to need some points to boost the CHA. So let’s drop the base to 4, giving a total WIS of 10, and saving 6 points to boost the Charisma base.
  • The Whale has a CHA of 5, which is too low in my personal opinion, but it is what it is. The adult dragon gets +6 to charisma – implying that if the two were equivalent (as assumed), the base would be -1. Adding the +6 saved from Wisdom to this gets it up to a base of 5, and a net score of 11. That’s still not enough – Seahorses are often considered quite pretty and iridescent creatures, and even at a gargantuan size, some of that charm should survive. In fact, I’m going to steal 10 more points from STR and apply them to Charisma – giving a base CHA of 15 and a net of 21. However, this also drops STR to base 16 and net 30. Which is only slightly less than the STR of a whale of equivalent size.
• The Draconic Age Category table also preempts the discussion of HD. We’ve already seen that the Whale has 15, and an adult dragon gets Base + 10 HD – so if they are equal, that defines Base for a Dracohorse as 5HD. Whether or not we want to dial this up or down remains to be determined.
• The same table discusses natural armor. The Whale has an AC of 22, comprising 10 base, -2 Dex, +18 Natural, and -4 size. Obviously, the DEX component is going to change because we’ve given the Adult Dracohorse a Dex of 18 instead of 6. That makes a huge difference! The key points here, however, are the +18 Natural and -4 for size. The latter is obviously still applicable, while according to the Dragon Age Category table, Dragons of adult age only get +14 Natural armor. That means that the AC 22 would drop to AC 18 from that alone, which will rise to the mid-twenties once the DEX adjustment is taken into account. That fits our mental image of a seemingly frail creature (relative to a whale) that is quite dexterous and nimble, making it a lot harder to hit than it might seem.
• The final entry in this column is “Breath Weapon” and that’s of particular interest. The adult dragon gets Base x6 Breath Weapon, so a 2d6 base breath weapon would become 12d6, a 3d6 base weapon would become 18d6, and a 4d6 base weapon would become 24d6. This still requires more investigation to nail down, but it’s a foundation.
• Next comes the Dragon Attacks and Speeds table. Gargantuan Dragons have a fly of 250 ft and have the “clumsy” maneuverability trait. That doesn’t fit – the Dracohorse swims, it doesn’t fly, and our vision is that it is anything but clumsy despite it’s size. So that’s one aspect of the Dragon “insertion” that will need custom treatment.
• Bite attack? Not with this creature. But I note a later column, “1 tail sweep”, which seems to fit exactly the default attack mode that we had in mind for this creature. So transposing the content of the two columns should work well, and maybe dropping the results one size category – so that only at Colossal size does the Dracohorse get a bite attack. Consulting the attack mode description, I note that the range of effect would also need to be adjusted for smaller dragons; 30ft is nominated for gargantuan, so 25ft for huge, 20′ for large, 10′ for medium, 5′ for small, and 1 5′ space for tiny, would seem to work.
• 2 claws? Seahorses don’t have arms, so that doesn’t seem right. But losing this attack mode could justify an increase in the breath weapon’s potency, so that a smaller base attack value is needed to reach similar levels of damage. At gargantuan size, two claws doing 2d8 damage each = 4d8; so a 3d6 base breath weapon would become 18d6+4d8 – which is a bit better, on average than 18d6+4d6 would be, which totals 22d6. So that seems to check out.
• The next columns relate to the range of the breath weapon, and requires us to choose between a line attack and a cone attack. To be honest, given the environment in which the two apply, the ranges for the cone weapon seem more rational. But until we decide on the breath weapon’s nature, we can’t decide. Checking the attack description, however, shows this as a Supernatural ability and not a natural attack – and we definitely want it to be the latter. I’m thinking more along the lines of a pressure wave expelled from the snout of the seahorse, perhaps based on a Water Elemental attack mode.
• Dragon Senses – “Dragons have Darkvision 60ft and Blindsense 60ft” according to page 90. This is NOT quite the same thing described in the template. A whale’s blindsight is 120ft. I often find it more useful to contemplate how many rounds of vision creatures have – whales swim at 40ft per round, maximum speed, so that gives them just 3 rounds warning. Dragons are supposed to have acute senses, but 60′ – if the dragon travels at 250ft per round – is less than 1/4 of a round’s warning. Throw in the clumsy maneuverability, and by the time a dragon can perceive an obstacle using these senses, it’s too late. In effect, Dragons can’t use anything close to their natural speed except when the weather is good and the light bright. Underwater is a whole different environment; water is great at absorbing light.
  • Ultraviolet light is fully absorbed at approx 25m (82 ft) depth.
  • Violet colored light is fully absorbed at approx 100m (328ft) depth.
  • Blue colored light is fully absorbed at approx 275m (902ft) depth.
  • Green light gets to about 110m (361ft).
  • Yellow light gets to about 50m (164ft).
  • Orange light gets to only 20m (66ft).
  • Red light only gets down about 5m (16ft).
  • Infrared light is the least energetic of all, and is fully absorbed at about 3m (10ft) depth.
  • Visibility underwater is defined as the distance at which a test pattern called a “Secchi Disc”, and the global record for visibility is 79m (259ft). Many factors act to reduce visibility.

  It’s sensible to assume that a creature’s range of vision would evolve to suit its speed and vice-versa, to give it enough time to change course if confronted by an obstacle or predator. The three-round figure used by the whale is reasonable for a creature with good maneuverability and sufficient acuity, which the whale has. If our underwater Dracohorses are to have an underwater speed of 60ft, they need 180ft range of visibility, increasing to 240ft or even 300ft if they stay “clumsy” in maneuverability. It also makes sense that creatures would not retain any capacity to see colors that won’t support this range of vision – green, blue, and violet are in, everything else is out. This focus would enable greater acuity within those color ranges than humans can claim. The base amount provided for Dragons is nowhere close to being sufficient, and will need to be increased.

• Frightful Presence: I’m not sure this quite fits, either. “Charming presence”, however, might be useful.
• Spell-like abilities: A dragon’s caster level for it’s spell-like abilities is equal to its total HD. That’s fine.
• Damage Reduction: Dragons gain this as they age, but it’s different for each different type of Dragon. Their natural abilities are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
• Immunities: in addition to those listed in the template, Dragons gain immunities to 1-2 additional forms of attack; which ones vary with type of dragon.
• Spell resistance: A dragon’s SR is 11+ it’s CR.

Arguably, almost all of that if not all of it, should have been part of the Template. At the very least, the template should have referred the reader to it! But, setting that aside, let’s think about the specifics of those last couple of items, which vary with Dragon Type – Damage Reduction and Immunities.

• Black Dragons get immunity to acid and the ability to breathe water. They live in swamps. They also get DR 5/magic at Young Adult, rising to DR 20/magic as Wyrms.
• Blue Dragons get immunity to electricity and the ability to create or destroy water. They live in deserts. Damage reduction is as per Black Dragons.
• Green Dragons get the same as Black Dragons, and live in forests. Damage Reduction is as per Black Dragons.
• Red Dragons get the Fire Subtype, which has to be looked up elsewhere in the book. When you do so, you find it confers immunity to fire damage and vulnerability to cold. Damage reduction is as per Black Dragons – again.
• White Dragons get the Cold Subtype, which presumably confers the opposite abilities to the Fire Subtype. Damage reduction is (surprise, surprise) the same as for Black Dragons.
• Brass Dragons: As per Red Dragons.
• Bronze Dragons: Immunity to electricity and the ability to breathe water. Damage Reduction remains unchanged.
• Copper Dragons: Immunity to acid. DR as usual.
• Gold Dragons: as per Red Dragons.
• Silver Dragons: as per White Dragons, plus immunity to acid.

So much for varying by Dragon, at least as far as DR is concerned – I expected that some types would get DR sooner than others, or might get different amounts of it..Not the case at all. So the DR can translate across directly to the Dracohorse. Additional immunities…. I’m tempted to include “Breathe Water” but have another source for that. Electricity tends to be fairly rare underwater, and poisons and acids tend to get diluted very quickly, except in regions where vast quantities are being released – volcanic eruptions and vents – which are also where you’re likely to sustain heat damage, so the Fire Subtype doesn’t make much sense, either. That leaves the cold subtype as the only possible contender from the existing Dragon types, or something new.

According to Wikipedia, “The temperature of the deep ocean drops gradually with depth. As saline water does not freeze until it reaches -2.3?C (27.9?F) (or colder, as depth and pressure increase) the temperature well below the surface is usually not far from zero degrees” (C). That’s cold enough that the cold subtype makes sense, enabling the Dracohorse to penetrate to greater depths.

Except for the effects of pressure, that is. For every 33ft (10m) you drop, the pressure increases by 14.5 psi (1.019451 kg per square cm, or 0.9866665 atmospheres). Humans can only survive pressures of about 2.5 atmospheres – above that, the oxygen we breathe becomes toxic. Tardigrades (tiny creatures also known as water bears, about 1.5mm in length – the exposed tip in a sharpened pencil would make two or three of them), in contrast, can cope with more than 1200 atmospheres. But if we restrict ourselves to normal fishy depths, that’s about 1000m down, or about 100 atmospheres – some forty times what humans can cope with. Using gills instead of lungs can account for some of that, the rest would have to come from different biochemistries. But “immune to crushing damage” seems completely reasonable, under the circumstances.

I mentioned that I had spotted a second source of Water breathing that seemed appropriate to me. That source is the aquatic subtype. “Aquatic creatures always have swim speeds and can move in water without making swim checks” – sounds right. “…can breathe water” – there it is. “…cannot breathe air unless it has the amphibious special quality.” that’s fine. Treat Swim as though it were a class skill – why do they need to, if they don’t have to make swim checks? Maybe there’s a technical reason that escapes me. It doesn’t matter anyway, because they get that from the Dragon template.

Size, CR, & HD

Everything we’ve talked about so far is based on a gargantuan adult. That gives a minimum CR of 6. But, contemplating the scale of such creatures, I am continually tempted to drop them a size category – leave the gargantuan to the Great Wyrms and whales and drop down to something closer to a Dragon Turtle in size. That took me to the core rule-book, and the most confusing table that I’ve ever seen – it seems to imply that a creature that stands about 100 ft tall, i.e. has a footprint, standing, of 20′ x 20′, is the same size class as a creature that is 20′ long and 20′ wide. The terms used in the table are not explained in the rules, and neither are the columns, so I might be misinterpreting them. In search of a little clarity, I turned to my D&D 3.5 PHB, and page 150. I found “gargantuan” illustrated by a purple worm of unknown length, rearing 50′ high, and with a base footprint roughly 20′ wide and about 25′ above-ground. For stability, I would expect the below-ground portion to be at least another 25′ in length, probably more. I couldn’t find an equivalent illustration in the Pathfinder core rules – but the details in the size tables look virtually identical.

In other words, the standard size tables make a lot of assumptions about shape and posture and dimensions that may not apply. But a gargantuan creature would be about 100′ in length, tip to tail, if ‘unfolded’ into a straight line.

Seahorses have a snout and head, a neck, a body, and a tail that coils beneath them. Length is usually measured from the top of the head to the bottom of the lowermost coil. The coil can be as much as 2/3 of the total length of the creature (measured by eye from photographs), but only about 1/2 the usually-measured length (ditto). So one-third of 100ft in length is about 35 ft; giving a rough size of 75′ in head-top-to-coil-bottom length. A Huge creature, in comparison, would only be about 2/3 of the total length, so from 70ft, we would be talking about something only 47′ tall. That makes a big difference – instead of being about 15 times human size, we’re talking about something only about 5 times. On top of that, seahorses tend to be relatively thin, side-to-side – so a huge sized creature would be roughly the same side-to-side width as a human, or a horse. That’s just too thin. So my first instincts, to keep the creature gargantuan, seem to have been correct.

Whales have a CR of 10. Dragons have an age-based CR – so a CR of 10 for an adult creature would be a base CR of 2 for a Wyrmling. Adult dragons, looking at them by individual type, are given CRs of 11 to 15. That suggests that the base needs to be increased in the case of our Dracohorse, and yet, it makes sense to me that an individual Dracohorse would be slightly down on the CR of most Dragons. So I’ll leave that as is.

Which brings me to HD. According to table 1-2, in the Bestiary, a CR10 creature of the Animal type gets 15HD. That matches what we have for the Whale. Looking up Dragon for the same CR, we get 12HD. That seems reasonable, since the HD in question are larger. But it does mean that the bonus HP are going to diminish – from the 90 that they are now, to 12/15ths of that value, or +72.

According to table 1-6, that gives a base BAB (Fast track) of +10, a Good Save of +7, and 5 Feats. It also means that some of the feats that were inherited from Whale may need to be reduced in potency. Well, as it turns out, the only one that might be affected is Skill Focus (Perception). The other feats that were retained from Whale – diehard and iron will – are all or nothing, you have it or you don’t. That doesn’t mean that they don’t have to be taken into account, of course. That leaves space for two more feats. Looking over the list of specifics imported from “Dragon”, I don’t see any feats listed. So we have two feats free to allocate.

But, at the moment, we have Blindsight 60′ and Darkvision 60′, and neither of them adequate, given the Dracohorse’s anticipated speed through the water of 60 ft. I calculated earlier that 240′ would be better. So, if we get rid of the Darkvision, and take a second load of Blindsight, we can go to 120ft. Take Blindsight twice more using those remaining feat slots, and we get it up to the 240′ we want. That gives the Dracohorse four rounds at top speed to maneuver, despite being saddled with a “clumsy” maneuverability.

Come to think of it, what exactly does “clumsy” mean? Maneuverability is not explained in the core rule-book, or anywhere in the bestiary that I could see. I checked twice to be sure. In the Hero System, maneuverability is described by a Turn Mode, which is the number of spaces that you have to travel in a straight line before you can make a 60-degree turn. That works, because it’s a hex-grid based system, and the hexes have a uniform size. What’s more, base Turn Mode is calculated from your current speed of movement – it’s either 1/5th or 1/10th of your speed in the universal scale that they use for character abilities, I forget which. You can buy increases or decreases to that amount. One memorable PC could only turn on a skill check; 75% of the time, he could do so, the rest of the time, he had to advance another Turn Mode worth of spaces before he could try again. For some reason, he was always flying into things…

Flying into things, or swimming into them, is not what I want this creature to be doing – not by accident, anyway. But the squares system used in Pathfinder doesn’t lend itself to a simple conversion of the Hero Games solution. In other words, other than GM interpretation, I can’t tell what “clumsy” means. Never mind, though.

The Re-skinning

Stats have already been determined, so all that remains is spending the extra 4Î12HD=48 skill points, which I won’t bother with right now, and writing up the descriptive paragraphs, which I’ve skimped on more than a little in the course of this example. What I want is a placid, easy-going sea creature with a foul and violent temper when provoked.

Dracohorses tend to aggregate in pods of up to 16 individuals, consisting of one leader of Mature age or better, 3-5 adults of younger age than the leader, at least 3 of whom are females, half of any remainder in young and juveniles, and the balance in wymling and very young. The young are playful, carefree, curious, and explorers; the adults keep close tabs on them and intervene should anything really dangerous approach, but otherwise let the young explore as desired. Every few hours, the leader will cast the latest experiences of the pod in the form of a fictional narrative incorporating real events and settings. What brings these narratives to an end, no-one knows for certain; a single narrative can be sustained and extended for decades or even centuries. Dracohorses have very long memories. While they have a level of Wisdom that leads them to make mistakes on occasion, this memory means that they rarely repeat a mistake. They communicate only through their songs, which no surface-dweller has ever learned to translate. It is believed, however, that marine Deities understand the songs. There is some evidence that Dracohorses can understand Human and Elven languages.

Their breath weapon distinguishes them from other marine life and characterizes them as Draconic. It is a pulse of water that travels in a straight line from their snouts to strike a target. It is relatively more potent than might be expected from the size of an individual.

Dracohorses are at their most dangerous when working as a pod. They are quite intelligent enough to coordinate attacks, and if you thought one breath weapon was bad, contemplate being hit by ten or more at the same time.

With all the core decisions made, and since I’m running out of time to get this article finished, I’ll leave the rest to the reader. What’s important is that you recognize the flaws in the standard process of re-skinning, and can see that this variation on the technique, although a little more work, avoids those pitfalls to yield a better end-product – better in terms of the quality of interaction possible between creature and environment and PCs. This process yields creatures that feel like they “belong” – and not like they were put together using something akin to a dartboard. And it doesn’t matter what your campaign genre or chosen game system is, that’s always beneficial.

Update 22 October 2019: There’s More To The Story

Readers should be aware that I have written a (much shorter) sequel to this article which builds on the content above and integrates it into a more holistic whole-of-campaign approach. You can find the continuation at Further Thoughts On Exotic Creations (opens in a new tab). Cheers!