Dolomites in autumn image courtesy pixabay.com/kordi_vahle

The GM puts a problem in front of the PCs – a couple of thugs extorting the locals. The players come up with a plan to solve the problem which works perfectly. The public shower the PCs with rewards and gratification.

Sounds pretty boring to me. Where’s the challenge? Where’s the adventure?

Roadblocks, Tripwires, Deceptions, Mistakes, Obstacles, Complications, Plot Twists, and Conundrums are absolutely vital to making an RPG interesting for participants. Scriptwriters use the general term “setbacks”, which is as good a choice as any.

How big should a setback be?

Minimum setback: one molehill

The GM puts a problem in front of the PCs – a couple of thugs extorting the locals. The players come up with a plan which works perfectly until one of the thugs grease the floor in front of the PCs. The PCs make a couple of DEX rolls to keep their footing, finish executing their plan, and run the thugs out of town. The public shower the PCs with rewards and gratification.

This is a molehill. It doesn’t do anything more than briefly inconvenience those confronted by it. This establishes a minimum scale for problems.

Maximum setback: the nuclear option

The GM puts a problem in front of the PCs – a couple of thugs extorting the locals. The players come up with a plan. The GM detonates a nuclear weapon, killing everyone. The plan fails because there is no-one left to complete it.

Sounds like quite a setback, doesn’t it?

Setting aside any problems with verisimilitude for the moment, this blatantly ridiculous example establishes a logical maximum for setbacks: the greatest possible setback that should be presented to the PCs is one that they can do something about, however difficult that might be, and that leaves the door open for further attempts or solutions if the first attempt fails.

You can even argue that the more remote the chance of success, the more scope should be left for other solutions because the PCs are more likely to need that scope.

Other Setback Constraints

There are other constraints that we should routinely apply in selecting a constraint beyond excluding those that are too easy and those that are too difficult. As a general rule:

• players must either already possess, or be able to acquire, any tools or knowledge required to overcome the setback.
• setbacks must be rational in terms of the established genre.
• setbacks must be rational in terms of the established circumstances and relevant background.
• setbacks must be discernible with sufficient game time for a solution to be implemented.
• setbacks should be novel in some respect, or at least, not used recently.

When most GMs start out, the setbacks they choose are generally semi-random, consequences of the in-game situation, often taking advantage of errors or failures by the PCs. Call them “targets of opportunity”. Regardless of how difficult they may be to overcome, these setbacks are trivial in plot terms.

With a little more expertise, GMs start designing setbacks directly into the adventures. This is easy when the ultimate problem to be overcome is not the same as the problem initially presented to the PCs. The setbacks are no longer plot-trivial, and the fact of the setback often has ramifications and repercussions in future adventures.

A little more experience permits GMs to begin using setbacks for their impact on the overall plotline of the campaign, both having the setback derive from circumstances deliberately engineered to create the setback, and having the fact of the setback expose or develop another plot threat and a larger-scale problem for the PCs to solve. Because these setbacks can, to some extent, be foreseeable – even inevitable – if you know the whole of the campaign background and present circumstances, smart players can sometimes anticipate them and prepare accordingly.

The progression described is clearly one of embedding complications and potential solutions more deeply into the campaign’s foundations, and of that permitting both greater scope for story-telling and greater depths of interaction between campaign and participants.

Of course, it’s possible to get even more convoluted in your plotting.

The current phase of my Zenith-3 campaign is coming to a close, having established the broader campaign background, setting, and context, having presented the players with a set of problems that have been solved, one by one, the cumulative effect of which have been to set the stage for a whole new set of problems and setbacks. The whole purpose of Phase I is to get the campaign established and ready for Phase II. Phase II will lead to Phase III, and so on.

Phase VI (or is it VII?) brings together plot elements and consequences from all the previous stages of the campaign in an epic confrontation for the fate of their universe. Subsequent phases are brief post-scripts to deal with consequences and fall-out – as far as I can anticipate it.

While I can discern the broad shape of future phases at this point, many details and specifics derive from PC successes and failures, choices and strategies, that have yet to occur. Some of these are binary options – a phase could be X or it could be Y, but it will inevitably be some variation on one of them. The campaign setting continues to evolve as adventure outcomes accumulate within the campaign background.

Another way to look at all this is – I’ve built certain plot landmines and signposts into the background, but can’t fully predict when the players will stumble over one of them.

To some extent, once your thinking shifts to this new paradigm of seeing and thinking about setbacks in terms of their campaign impact, you can never go back again. You are no longer running on instinct alone, but have engaged the PCs in a battle of wits – them against the campaign’s capacity to give them grief. This is often mischaracterized as a Player vs the GM conflict; it’s not, because the GM is a completely neutral participant whose only objective is to involve the players in interesting situations and plotlines that are, or can become, within the scope of their character’s abilities to resolve.

A hierarchy of setback scale

In both examples considered above, another subtle point can be sometimes overlooked. It’s not enough to think about setbacks in terms of plot alone. You have to be continually aware of the solutions required and of the PCs capabilities to satisfy those requirements.

It’s possible to define a scale of setback in terms of the degree of challenge they offer the PCs – from those that require nothing more than a successful die roll to those that require the acquisition of specific skills or knowledge to those that require the achievement of a specific intermediate position in a plot context before a solution to the larger problem can be even contemplated.

The advancing of power levels

The problem that needs continual solution by the GM is selecting a setback of appropriate scope and challenge to keep the players interested. This is one of the most difficult judgments a GM faces, because the goal posts keep moving as PCs advance in power level.

If the PCs are first level, the addition of a third thug of moderate expertise – say, 5th level – is something akin to the nuclear option. If the PCs are high-level – say, 15th level or higher – the addition of a 5th level thug is necessary to even make the confrontation a minor molehill.

A microcosm of the problem can be appreciated by considering the differential between favored save progressions and normal save progressions in Pathfinder/3.x. There are several other ways of achieving the same end, but they all tell the same story regardless of game system.

At low levels, disregarding magical assistance, feats, and class abilities, there isn’t a lot of difference in terms of the likelihood of success. Assuming an initial stat modifier of 1, a good save at first level is 3/- on d20 (15%), while a normal save is 1/- (5%). This initially seems like a lot – the chance of success has tripled – but a more accurate measure is the chance of failure, which is a ratio of 85% to 95%, or 0.895.

At 6th level, with the same stat modifier, a good save is up to 6/- (30%) and a normal is up to 3/- (15%). The chances of failure are 70% to 85%, a ratio of 0.8235. Even though the chance of success on a good save has only doubled, while that of a regular save has tripled, comparing these ratios shows that the change in the good save is more significant than that of the regular save.

At 18th level, with the same stat modifier, a good save is up to 12/- (60%) (double) and a normal one is up to 35% (slightly more than double). The character is more likely to make a good save than to fail one. The ratio of failure chances is 40% to 65%, or 0.615. You only need to glance at this result relative to the previous ones to see that whatever effect it describes has not only continued, it has accelerated.

But this simple picture is so improbable as to defy belief, let alone real world applicability. A character class’s favored save is favored for a reason. That reason usually implies that the character class will receive other class-specific benefits, over and above those of a “generic” character, from a high value in the stat on which a favored save is based. That’s not always the case, but it’s usually so.

That has two effects: it means that the favored save is more likely to have a higher stat bonus than a normal one, and that the character is more likely to invest their potential for improvement – feats, magic, and stat increases – toward improving that stat bonus (instead of another). Taking a guesstimate of these impacts into account makes a big difference. At first level, only the higher stat bonus is relevant – let’s call that an additional +2 (it could be more). At 6th level, +1 more than that seems reasonable. By the time a character hits 18th level, it would not be difficult to add another +4 to that incremental mark.

At first level, that makes the favored save 5/-, the chance of failure 75%, and the ratio favored-to-normal 0.789. It would take about 10 character levels to achieve this improvement in ratio through advancement alone (guesstimated).

At 6th level, the favored save is 9/-, and the chance of failure 55%. This gives a ratio favored-to-normal of 0.647 – not that far removed from the ratio at 18th level.

And at 18th level, the favored save is 19/-, the chance of failure a mere 5%, and the ratio is 0.077.

These numbers speak volumes to me, but not everyone is so mathematically-inclined.

To put them in context for most people, I need to describe them another way.

The mathematics of second chances

If you have a 10% chance of success at something, and will be given a second chance if you fail, the chance of success is 10% + 10%x90% = 19%. In such cases, it’s often easier, mathematically, to look at the chance of failure: 90% of 90% = 81%, so the net chance of success is 19%.

It’s when you start examining third chances and so on that things get more complicated following the “chance of success” route, because you have to track every possible way that you can succeed and assess each of them. The chance of failure is easier because you just have to keep multiplying by 90% until you run out of chances.

Third attempt: 72.9% chance of failure, so 27.1% chance of success.
Fourth attempt: 65.61% chance of failure, so 34.39% chance of success.
Fifth attempt: 59.049% chance of failure, so 40.951% chance of success.

…and so on.

Mathematically, that progression can be described as PT = 1 – (1 – PS)^N, where N is the number of chances PS is the chance of success on a single attempt, and PT is the total chance of success. Or, even simpler, TF = PF^N, where TF is the total chance of failing at all attempts, PF is the chance of failing at a single attempt, and N is the number of attempts you can make.

This is especially useful when some of the rules of logarithms are applied, which is what you have to do when you want to go from PT (or TF) to N:

N = log (TF) / log (PF) (probabilities in decimals, NOT percentages).

That means that I can “index” the relative improvement in chance of success or failure relative to some arbitrary standard.

The obvious standard in our case is the lowest chance of success, 5%. If you only had a 5% chance each time, how many chances does the highest total chance (95%) represent?

The answer, it turns out, is, 58. That’s as good an answer to the rhetorical question in the title of this article as you’re going to get.

Another way of looking at this answer is that a setback that rates as almost-impossible-to-overcome to the first-level character is only one-58th that size to the 18th-level character.

Two Philosophies Of Setbacks

There are two core philosophies to dealing with setbacks, and – to some extent – every GM drinks somewhat from both wells.

The first argues that there is a threshold of attention beneath which any problems should be ignored as trivial.

The second states that there can be a cumulative effect of many small problems, a synergizing that makes them, in compound, greater than the sum of their parts.

One task that highlights both philosophies is the setting up of camp at the end of a day’s adventuring. For first level, it’s entirely justifiable to make a big deal of this – everything from who’s turn it is to do the cooking to who’s on watch to having trouble getting tent pegs to “stick” are problems to be solved.

By the time characters are 6th level, you only need to mention the camp routine when something significant disrupts it. It’s more a matter of “this is what your character is doing, when….” – what was a mountain of note is now a molehill used only for background and context.

But there is also the line of thought that says such trivial problems should occasionally be mentioned for their verisimilitude value, even if they no longer represent substantial setbacks that need to be overcome.

The Practical Solution

When plotting an adventure, I try to make sure that every PC is given some kind of challenge or setback to overcome in the course of the day. Sometimes, players take so long that one PC may miss out, but that usually means that they get a double-dose of spotlight time the next session.

That problem can be minimized by inter-cutting from one plot sequence to another – if you have four PCs (A, B, C, and D), you might present problems to three of them (A, B, and C), then permit A to undertake a partial solution before interrupting to give D his problem, checking in with C, then back to A, who overcomes their personal setback, then to B, and so on.

Or, to put it another way, breaking each of these personal stories into smaller scenes and then arranging those scenes into a sequence that keeps the spotlight moving.

Any of these individual plot threads can then metastasize into the major group problem for the game session or lead into a larger plot. That’s what I call an iceberg plot thread – the problem, as originally presented to the player concerned, seems quite soluble and not especially distinguishable in terms of difficulty from the plot threads of the other PCs, but 9/10ths – or perhaps, if you prefer, 57/58ths – of the plot aren’t yet showing. Sometimes, the focal PC encounters additional complications and setbacks relative to those experienced by the other PCs, at other times, the satisfactory solution to their personal problem reveals something much larger that they can’t deal with alone.

Spontaneity and the risk of Unplanned Madness

While I tend to plan these things with great care, so long as you keep the general principles of what we’ve discussed in mind, there’s no need to do so. My personal finding is that I have more then enough to think about at the gaming table already, but others may feel differently. There are certainly benefits to spontaneity that can make this choice rewarding, just as there is a risk of unplanned madness and anarchy.

There is also a middle ground that may appeal to some, in which a general direction is planned in advance but the specifics are chosen from the options presented by the moment. Again speaking personally, I find this option to be more conducive to plot trains and plot holes than either of the alternatives.

Spontaneity also risks not being able to come up with a solution at the moment it’s needed. It avoids the danger of plot trains by replacing it with unreliability. Still, if you are sufficiently creative to avoid that danger, it can be a viable choice.

Pre-planning maximizes the danger of plot trains while minimizing the threat of not being able to come up with appropriate setbacks and challenges. You avoid that danger by actively and deliberately incorporating player choices and player-determined solutions to the problems that the PCs face. It places much greater emphasis on planning and prep, but if those can be accommodated, is the best solution.

How big is a setback?

Which brings me back to the rhetorical question posed in the title of this article, and the earlier thread of discussion – exactly how big should a setback be?

Much of the article has considered this from various perspectives, and shown that it’s not as straightforward as it might first appear. There are questions about second chances and about open-endedness that are critical to defining any specific answer. Only by generalizing and taking the whole question to a metagame level can any meaningful answer be derived.

A SINGLE setback should be no smaller than the minimum needed to function as a plot development and no larger than the maximum needed to create at least two viable alternative plot paths while minimizing the risk of completely unplanned plot outcomes.

Of course, you can utilize multiple setbacks and second chances, in combination, to manipulate plot trajectories on the larger scale. In effect, you are defining the initial conditions of the adventure (based, in part, on the outcomes and content of prior adventures); defining (in general terms) the outlines of one or more possible outcomes; and defining multiple paths between these start- and end-points, while leaving the specifics and the choice of which path to follow to the players.

The key-word that has been omitted from all the discussion to this point is anticipation.

Give the players one or more choices, know what the consequences of those choices are and how they will relate to the overall objective of the players, and the result is an adventure structure that rewards player participation, tolerates player inventiveness, rejects utterly the concept of plot trains, and yet still achieves the overall plot ambitions of the story-line.

Plot Maps

Plot Maps can be a useful tool for such planning. These are somewhat similar to a flowchart, which is a visual aid that most people can understand quickly and easily. A Plot map has three primary structural components:

• The narrative scene, which has no decision content and is usually a box shape;
• The choice scene, in which a decision is made between two or more outcomes which are described in narrative scenes and which is usually depicted as a diamond or a box with beveled edges; and
• the Consequential Narrative, which contains different narrative elements depending on an earlier choice. These contain content like second chances, or the consequences of decisions made much earlier in the game. I sometimes use a regular text box for these, and sometimes use a “tilted” box. I also sometimes use a color code and other times not – a lot depends on whether or not the map is something that I’m roughing out long-hand or is something that I expect to need to refer to, in-game.

Plot Maps always come in two parts – the map itself, and the key.

Beside this text, you can see an example plot map. The key that goes with this map would read something like:

• A1: Jonas meets Detective. The Problem.
• A2: Seek help or go it alone?
• A3: Go it alone – setback.
• A4: Resolve setback with a choice.
• A5a: Solution method 1. Consequences later in the adventure.
• A5b: Solution method 2. Consequences later in the adventure.
• B7: Jonas gets help from Harrow. Harrow cannot participate in B6; consequences later in the adventure.
• A6: Partial solution narrative.
• A7/A7a: Variations on balance of solution narrative – A7a with Harrow.
• A8: Solution presents a fresh problem.

Obviously, “Jonas” and “Harrow” are PCs, while the “Detective” is an NPC. Equally obviously, none of these scenes contains enough information to run the adventure from them; they aren’t even at the standard of a bullet-point outline. But they ARE a road-map to what you need to write in greater detail, and the map itself makes the relationship between two unrelated plotlines clear – those between PCs A and B, who I named Jonas and Harrow for the sake of example.

Between them, A5a and A5b are supposed to account for 100% of the consequences of A3, which in turn is an unknown percentage of the total ways this plotline could play out. Between them, though, A3 and B7 account for 100% of the choices.

Sometime later in the adventure, there will be another Choice Scene in which the players have no choice to make; instead, the road map will separate out one or more of A5a, A5b, or B7 when the consequences of the choices made here impact later in the adventure.

Of course, there are more than two solutions to any problem. The GM can anticipate the most likely ones, but can’t anticipate every possibility. By outlining the major alternatives, however, the GM gains the choice of which one most closely resembles the unshown “third choice”, permitting him to use that choice as the foundation of an improvised narrative.

For example, the player of PC B might be unsympathetic and prefer to continue with his own plot thread, believing that PC A is competent to solve his own problem. Thus PC A might choose B7 at A2, but PC B overrules that choice; after roleplaying the exchange between the two, the GM proceeds to ad-hoc a variant on A3, and the adventure is back on track.

At this point, it becomes relatively easy to approximate the difficulty of the setback. The initial problem has to be serious enough that PC A would consider interrupting whatever PC B has going on in his own plot thread, but not so serious that PC A can’t contemplate solving it on his own. The setback also has two possible outcomes, but isn’t serious enough that it forces PC A to rethink his decision not to involve PC B.

Mathematically, what works is for the setback to be about 2/3 the seriousness of the initial problem. And that, in turn, sets the initial decision (A2) as being about a 2/3 value – so there’s one chance in three that PC B will become involved.

Why those numbers? Because 2/3 of 2/3 is 4/9, which is extremely close to 50/50.

That means that the path A1-A2-A3-A4-A5a-A6-A7-A8 has a roughly 50% probability of occurring; path A1-A2-B7-A6-A7a-A8 has a roughly one in three chance of occurring; and the remaining path, through A5b, has the rest – roughly one in six. That assessment gives a guideline as to how much time the GM should spend on those options – bearing in mind how much they all have in common.

Being able to target the development of the adventure in this way is always useful; it means that most of your prep effort as a GM goes where it is going to be needed.

The net effect is of enabling you to have your plot “cake” and eat it too. You have structure where it’s useful, and spontaneity where you need it – but it’s structured spontaneity, improvising in the service of the bigger picture.

And 58 molehills make you a mountain.

This is something of an unusual article.

As many of you know, I got my start submitting guest articles for Roleplaying Tips, and eventually co-founded Campaign Mastery with the writer/editor/publisher of that email newsletter, Johnn Four.

A recent article was about “How To Think Like An Alien” – Johnn no longer numbers the issues in the subjects, so I’m not sure which issue it was, but it hit my inbox on 13 August.

I thought the article was excellent, but incomplete in one or two important respects. Today’s article here at Campaign Mastery is intended to correct that situation.

Johnn’s article is now available online; just click the link below to open it in a new tab. You have to read this article before continuing with my contribution to the processes.

How To Think Like An Alien by Johnn Four – Roleplaying Tips, Aug 13, 2018

Alien image by pixabay.com/TheDigitalArtist, background added by Mike

The missing half of the equation

It’s relatively easy to give the natives a strange thought process, and have the PCs eventually figure out the way they think as described, but this can consume a GM’s total attention, leading them to forget that the NPCs are also trying to figure out how the PCs think.

The “aliens” often seem to understand the human side almost completely, an unrealistic situation if this is really a “first encounter”.

I’ve seen this mistake in innumerable examples within science fiction, so much so that it is the norm and those that don’t make this mistake are very much within the minority. A notable exception that gets it right more than most is “Mars Attacks!” Literary examples that get it mostly right include “The Black Cloud” by Fred Hoyle and the “Lensman” series by E.E. “Doc” Smith. Another novel in which understanding alien points of view is central to the plot is “The Gods Themselves” by Isaac Asimov, especially the middle portion of the novel.

Of course, an RPG environment is quite different to a literary one. The lesson, from a role-playing perspective, is “Don’t make the alien society so complicated that you have no room for the counterpoint.”

Established Protocols

The more a society anticipates potentially coming into contact with aliens, the more they will have thought about the problem and prepared in advance. SETI, for example, have established protocols in place for dealing with possible signals from an advanced society.

These protocols deal with the obvious problems – verification, ensuring that no part of the message(s) are lost once one is first detected, and analysis of the message. But they also deal with more complex problems – who speaks on behalf of humanity, what they should establish and what they should not mention, how to deal with rogue parties who don’t want to play ball with the protocols and attempt to open a second line of dialogue with the aliens, and so on.

In effect, some of these protocols mandate the immediate creation of a world government based on the United Nations, with the military forces of the members under their command for explicit purposes. The national leader of the nation in which the contact occurs is notified, as a matter of course, even as the protocol’s provisions effectively sideline him or her.

That’s a point of major difference between the typical D&D world and the human historical models on which they are based – there are so many sentient races in existence that the “obvious mistakes” in first-contact would have been experienced and a practical set of procedures and protocols established, though these would be colored by racial imperatives and personality profiles.

A chief concern of the SETI protocols is that the aliens not perceive human society as something to be exploited. Of course, if the technological divide is too great, we may not recognize the exploitation in time.

One form of this phenomenon was explored in a Star Trek novel, of all places – “Spock’s World” by Diane Duane, another of the handful of sources that get alien contact “right”.

Consistent Alien Perspectives

One technique that can greatly reduce the effort required of the GM is to have simple guidelines as to the alien “thought patterns” that are both consistent and can be readily extrapolated to identify human reactions that are analogous to the alien behavior.

The starting point is always the race themselves. I’ve written about how to create logical, internally-consistent aliens in the past: Alien In Innovation: Creating Original Non-Human Species.

Once you’ve got the basics of the biology down pat, you can think about the way that they think, guided by biological necessities and priorities. Although no article of mine actually discusses the process explicitly, I have talked about creating consistent alien personalities (which encompasses their thought patterns) in Creating Alien Characters: Expanding the ‘Create A Character Clinic’ To Non-Humans.

Once you have the alien’s thought patterns, you can think about how their mental and physical structures affect their technology – see Studs, Buttons, and Static Cling: Creating consistent non-human tech.

But I would actually run the aliens through the processes described in my Distilled Cultural Essence series first.

It’s common to see technology as the driver of society and culture, and perhaps even more correct to do so, but in terms of making it as easy to create something as possible, I usually find it easier to get a satisfactory result by expanding personality patterns into social structures and implications, then choosing technologies that fit, than vice-versa.

Of course, the principles explained in Ergonomics and the Non-Human and its sequel, The Ergonomics Of Dwarves can also be very helpful.

Universality Of Application

Alien Species abound in almost all gaming genres.

In fantasy games, there are things like Elementals and Undead and Beholders and Ilithids (and more) – none of whom will think in exactly the same way as humans. On top of that, you can have distinctive thought patterns in new population groups even if the racial profiles are the same.

Westerns have Indians and other native tribes.

In Pulp and Cthulhu and other age-of-steam / pre-WWII genres, not only can you have strange tribes but some human cultures and subcultures are so different from the norm of the characters that you can consider them alien.

The sci-fi applications are obvious.

This universality is because “the outsider” always makes good story-fodder, and an RPG is about a shared experience in storytelling.

Language

A non-human language is obviously going to be constructed from the sounds that the species can create and will exclude any that they can’t. There are lots of factors that go into determining those sounds, and not all of them are obvious – birds, for example, look very similar in structure from one species to another, but the variety of sounds they can produce and that are specific to one species are incredible. Some of the differences are too subtle for anyone but an expert to distinguish; others are blatantly obvious. Being Australian, the example that comes immediately to mind is the Kookaburra, with it’s distinctive laugh which can be heard on the Wikipedia page for the species.

But there are still more possibilities. Crickets create their distinctive chirp by rubbing their hind legs together.

Even if you stick to more mammalian structures, mouth shape, throat shape, and many other factors remain – compare the sound of a cow with that of a horse with that of a dolphin.

It’s probably going too far to suggest that any sound that you can imagine is a plausible “vocalization” for a non-human species; inorganic sounds still sound inorganic.

This 2014 article from “The Atlantic” gives the inside story of the creation of the unique vocalization of the Wookies for the original Star Wars, which combined the voices of four bears, a badger, a lion, a seal, and a walrus. A key consideration, according to a quote from the article, was to select sounds that were appropriate to the physiology: “He didn’t have articulated lips; he could basically open and close his mouth. So you also needed to create a sound which would be believable coming from a mouth that was operated like his,” according to the quote from Ben Burrtt, the sound designer on the film.

It’s important to give some thought to what sounds the alien species can make, and how they structure these to produce their language.

The second edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contains entries for 171,476 words in current use; 47,156 obsolete words; and around 9,500 derivative words included as sub-entries (according to the dictionary’s website). Call it a little over 228,000 in total. Also according to Google, the human voice is able to create 500 basic sounds (only a small fraction of which are used by any given language). That means that two syllables are enough to encode 250,000 words – every word in the English language, plus almost 22,000 up our sleeves for new technical terms.

Of course, this language would be a nightmare to learn. Languages have rules that generally group words with related meanings together (horse, horses, horsehide, etc for example, or run and ran). English is actually one of the worst languages in this respect; my Thesaurus groups its words into just 990 individual concepts. Even assuming that we need a different word for use as an adjective, etc, and suggesting that this degree of compilation goes too far in abstracting its concepts, 9,900 words would seem to be ample for general communication.

Another key concept is the hearing range of the species. I once read somewhere that Dolphins have a hearing range that extends up to 100,000 Hertz (depending on the species) – much higher than humans, who generally top out at 20,000 Hertz. Potentially, up to four fifths of the tones they might be able to make are completely inaudible to Humans – and, from the Dolphin point of view, even a tonal language would be shockingly monotone and flat.

Now consider how we humans incorporate additional emotional nuance through the tone of voice (in English at least), and what an “unnaturally flat” voice generally is considered to mean – serious, calm, unexcited, and – to at least some extent – uninteresting.

Here’s another way of interpreting it: take a paragraph or two of English dialogue and remove all question marks and exclamation points, replacing them with commas and full stops, respectively. Then read the dialogue to yourself and see how it changes.

Here, for example, is a passage from Triplanetary, the first book in the Lensman series:

“I am a poor, ignorant specimen of ape that can be let play with apparatus, am I?” he rasped, as he picked up the key tube of the specialist and opened the door of his prison. “They’ll learn now that it ain’t safe to judge by the looks of a flea how far he can jump!”

Compare that with:

“I am a poor, ignorant specimen of ape that can be let play with apparatus, am I,” he rasped, as he picked up the key tube of the specialist and opened the door of his prison. “They’ll learn now that it ain’t safe to judge by the looks of a flea how far he can jump.”

The emotional tone is completely different. What was a rhetorical question now contains an overtone of anger and bitterness, while the latter exclamation becomes a simple statement of fact and implied expression of ruthlessness. The passion has all been squeezed out of the passage.

Simulating alien Accents

But it’s probably more important to think about what kind of accent an alien physiology mandates when the aliens speak English – and a heck of a lot easier. So make up whatever you want for the alien voice, but then take that into account when deciding how their English sounds.

Personally, I would employ the same basic methods as described in the two “Ergonomics” articles described earlier. Write the passage of dialogue in English and decide what your aliens can and can’t do with his mouth and voice (based on the ‘native’ vocalization you’ve created), then precede the passage with appropriate notes:
“Don’t move lips”, “tongue to one side and held immobile”.

More advanced techniques replace impossible phonetics with spaces – for example, here’s a recent passage from an Adventurer’s Club case describing the history of one John F Brinkley:

“A fraud, a quack, a loopy practitioner who claims to be a medical doctor – he has no legitimate medical education and bought his medical degree from a “diploma mill”, and is better known as the “goat-gland doctor” because of his national infamy, international notoriety and great personal wealth. He has made a fortune espousing the xenotransplantation of goat testicles into humans as a universal male panacea. He has clinics and hospitals in several states centered around Kansas, and despite the fact that right from the start, the medical community thoroughly discredited his methods, he has been able to continue his activities for almost two decades now. He lures victims to his facilities by blasting radio across the border from Mexico, where he isn’t required to adhere to US regulations. In 1930, he was stripped of his license to practice in Kansas and neighboring states, and launched a campaign to become Kansas Governor so that he could appoint his own medical board and regain those licenses and might even have won had it not been for widespread ballot tampering by his opponents!”

…and here’s that same passage with every “d”, “l”,”t’, and “z” replaced with “-e-“, every “j” replaced with “-ay-“, every “n” replaced with “-eng-“, every “q” with “-coo-“, every “s” with “-th-“, every “w” replaced with a “-h-“, and every “x” with a “-ch-” – which, when you run through the basic sounds of English is every change that occurs if you can’t touch the roof of your mouth with your tongue:

“A frau-e-, a -coo-uack, a -e-oopy prac-e-i-e-io-eng-er -h-ho c-e-aim-th- -e-o be a me-e-ica-e- -e-oc-e-or – he ha-th- -eng-o -e-egi-e-ima-e-e me-e-ica-e- e-e-uca-e-io-eng- a-eng–e- bough-e- hi-th- me-e-ica-e- -e-egree from a “-e-ip-e-oma mi-e–e-“, a-eng–e- i-th- be-e–e-er k-eng-o-h–eng- a-th- -e-he “goa-e–g-e-a-eng–e- -e-oc-e-or” becau-th-e of hi-th- -eng-a-e-io-eng-a-e- i-eng-famy, i-eng–e-er-eng-a-e-io-eng-a-e- -eng-o-e-orie-e-y a-eng–e- grea-e- per-th-o-eng-a-e- -h-ea-e–e-h. He ha-th- ma-e-e a for-e-u-eng-e e-th-pou-th-i-eng-g -e-he -ch-e-eng-o-e-ra-eng–th-p-e-a-eng–e-a-e-io-eng- of goa-e- -e-e-th–e-ic-e-e-th- i-eng–e-o huma-eng–th- a-th- a u-eng-iver-th-a-e- ma-e-e pa-eng-acea. He ha-th- c-e-i-eng-ic-th- a-eng–e- ho-th-pi-e-a-e–th- i-eng- -th-evera-e- -th–e-a-e-e-th- ce-eng–e-re-e- arou-eng–e- Ka-eng–th-a-th-, a-eng–e- -e-e-th-pi-e-e -e-he fac-e- -e-ha-e- righ-e- from -e-he -th–e-ar-e-, -e-he me-e-ica-e- commu-eng-i-e-y -e-horough-e-y -e-i-th-cre-e-i-e-e-e- hi-th- me-e-ho-e–th-, he ha-th- bee-eng- ab-e-e -e-o co-eng–e-i-eng-ue hi-th- ac-e-ivi-e-ie-th- for a-e-mo-th–e- -e–h-o -e-eca-e-e-th- -eng-o-h-. He -e-ure-th- vic-e-im-th- -e-o hi-th- faci-e-i-e-ie-th- by b-e-a-th–e-i-eng-g ra-e-io acro-th–th- -e-he bor-e-er from Me-ch-ico, -h-here he i-th–eng-‘-e- re-coo-uire-e- -e-o a-e-here -e-o US regu-e-a-e-io-eng–th-. I-eng- 1930, he -h-a-th- -th–e-rippe-e- of hi-th- -e-ice-eng–th-e -e-o prac-e-ice i-eng- Ka-eng–th-a-th- a-eng–e- -eng-eighbouri-eng-g -th–e-a-e-e-th-, a-eng–e- -e-au-eng-ch-e-e- a campaig-eng- -e-o become Ka-eng–th-a-th- Gover-eng-or -th-o -e-ha-e- he cou-e–e- appoi-eng–e- hi-th- o-h–eng- me-e-ica-e- boar-e- a-eng–e- regai-eng- -e-ho-th-e -e-ice-eng-ce-th- a-eng–e- migh-e- eve-eng- have -h-o-eng- ha-e- i-e- -eng-o-e- bee-eng- for -h-i-e-e-th-prea-e- ba-e–e-o-e- -e-amperi-eng-g by hi-th- oppo-eng-e-eng–e–th-!”

though you might find it easier without the hyphens:

“A fraue, a coouack, a eoopy praceieioenger hho ceaimth eo be a meeicae eoceor he hath engo eegieimaee meeicae eeucaeioeng aenge boughe hith meeicae eegree from a “eipeoma miee”, aenge ith beeeer kengoheng ath ehe “goaegeaenge eoceor” becauthe of hith engaeioengae iengfamy, iengeerengaeioengae engoeorieey aenge greae perthoengae heaeeh. He hath maee a foreuenge ethpouthiengg ehe cheengoeraengthpeaengeaeioeng of goae eetheiceeth iengeo humaength ath a uengiverthae maee paengacea. He hath ceiengicth aenge hothpieaeth ieng theverae theaeeth ceengeree arouenge Kaengthath, aenge eethpiee ehe face ehae righe from ehe theare, ehe meeicae commuengiey ehoroughey eithcreeieee hith meehoeth, he hath beeeng abee eo coengeiengue hith aceivieieth for aemothe eho eecaeeth engoh. He eureth viceimth eo hith facieieieth by beatheiengg raeio acrothth ehe boreer from Mechico, hhere he itheng’e recoouiree eo aehere eo US regueaeioength. Ieng 1930, he hath therippee of hith eiceengthe eo praceice ieng Kaengthath aenge engeighbouriengg theaeeth, aenge eauengchee a campaigeng eo become Kaengthath Goverengor tho ehae he couee appoienge hith oheng meeicae boare aenge regaieng ehothe eiceengceth aenge mighe eveeng have hoeng hae ie engoe beeeng for hieethpreae baeeoe eamperiengg by hith oppoengeengeth!”

Some words – “be”, “from”, “a”, “he”, “of” – are unchanged. But they are in the minority.

Some – “fraue”, “egree”, “Mechico”, “hath” – could possibly be puzzled out, or are an archaic form of the current word in the latter case.

Most, however, are just gibberish – though it’s a consistent gibberish.

In practice, this is a longer speech than I would actually deliver “in tongue” – one or two sentences would be more than enough, and then have the PC roll to correctly “interpret” the rest of the speech, which is duly delivered in English on a success. But it amply illustrates the point.

Of course, your “aliens” might be fundamentally human or humanoid. Does that sbsolve you of the above technique? Heck, no! Remember my telling you that the human voice can produce 500 distinctive sounds (regardless of pitch or timbre of the voice)? English uses just 44 of these “Phonemes” – which leaves 456 others up for alien-language grabs.

Too much work. I’m not a linguist and most probably, neither are you. So just use a more judicious sprinkling of “alien conversions” to simulate your “alien” language, and be done.

You will find in the latter part of most entries in the “On Alien Languages” series, the conversions that I used in one of my campaigns for Dwarvish, Elvish, etc. Unfortunately, this series was never finished (because the campaign shut down), so the discussion of “why” promised in the last published part was never provided – and, because much of it would be redundant after this article, probably never will be.

The Wrap-up

It’s both important and useful to be able to think like aliens, and not as hard as it might initially seem. It’s equally important to present the aliens AS alien, and this is also not as difficult as you might think – though it does usually require some thought and advanced planning.

These shortcuts are vital, because you also need to roleplay the aliens trying to figure out the PCs, part of the “alien encounter” plot that is often either overlooked or oversimplified – when it shouldn’t be, and doesn’t have to be.

Image courtesy Pixabay.com/narsuine
(No, this is not my family)

Although I’ve lived in the state capital for more than half my life, and am a creature of thoroughly urbanized habits and propensities, at my core, I come from a small town almost 600km away named Nyngan, as explained in Location, Location, Location: Nyngan, in which I describe the township and how to adapt it as a template for various genres of RPG.

This article will draw a number of general conclusions from my family experiences.

As foundation, I need to describe those family experiences – in a fairly abstract way, no family secrets revealed!

But, while those family experiences relate to a family orbiting around a Matriarch, I want to make it clear before we begin that the central figure can just as easily be a Patriarch.

Of course, I’m sure some will have misread the title of this article as “Patterns Of Anarchy”, but that’s all right – there’s some of that in every family, too!

When I was growing up, my paternal grandmother was the Matriarch of the clan, the hub around which the entire family seemed to revolve, keeper of the social calendar, organizer and chief caterer of almost every social occasion and especially festive occasions like Birthdays, Christmases, and New Years. (I’ve starred myself, not out of vanity, but simply to provide a reference to the perspective from which changes should be viewed. Distance on the diagram roughly correlates with distance in real life).

There were a few branches of the family living in the remoteness of Sydney but it was from Nanna that all family news was disseminated.

It didn’t seem to matter too much when someone moved away – the Matriarch remained the point of central connection, and eventually, most absentees returned.

For example, the diagram above illustrates the time my family relocated to Peak Hill in an attempt to save my Parent’s marriage. When that attempt failed, everyone but my father relocated – back to Nyngan.

Some family members made more permanent migrations, of course. You can see that process beginning in the diagram above. And, of course, there was also the inevitable passing away of family members. But always, the Matriarch was the central point of the family.

And then she wasn’t. Everyone passes away eventually, but it’s fair to say that the passing of some comes as a bigger blow than others.

The loss of an “-arch” creates a vacuum, an empty space at the heart of the family. For a while, old habits will persist, and the family will be drawn together in grief. But that doesn’t last. When this period of transition is complete, either someone else has stepped into the role, at least temporarily, or the family begins to drift apart, its cohesion shattered.

But being the patriarch or matriarch of a family is a pretty-much full-time job. You can’t do it and do anything else requiring a substantial time commitment, like holding down a job.

In the case of my family, one of my Aunts became the social and communications hub, even though she lived in Sydney and hence was remote to most of the family, as shown above. I know – I was boarding with her at the time, while I went to University. It was always a case of “who was going to be visiting next”, and when.

When she also passed away, it spelled the end of the family matriarchy.

In modern times, there are multiple family hubs, all interconnecting to some limited extent. There remains one nexus in Nyngan, revolving around three aunts (of two generations) and some nieces and nephews and their families. My mother forms a hub for her side of the family. My father has become something of a hub, especially since my sister and her family are located relatively close by, and he is a primary gateway to news from the Nyngan hub. There are two separate hubs in the national capital, one focusing on an Aunt and the other on my Brother and his large family.

I wanted to create a diagram for this stage in order to complete the sequence, but found that I simply no longer knew enough about the family. Whole branches had drifted away – there were cousins whose marital status and children I simply didn’t know – my cousins Cherie and Michael, for example. Is my Aunt Vera still alive? I don’t think so, but I’m not sure. Even some of the elements in the diagram above are merely “best-guess” and some are mere assumptions made in ignorance.

There are still occasions when a substantial percentage of the family get together, as we used to – at the last such, about 40 members were present, and at least one or two guests who aren’t yet officially part of the family. And smaller gatherings also occur – in fact, you can graph it, there’s a simple linear relationship between the number of family members involved and the frequency of gathering. I think, too, that it is significant that gatherings for weddings and significant birthdays continue to outnumber those for funerals; it shows that the family continues to grow.

In fact, it’s fair to state that a number of these ‘nexii’ are in the process of becoming the center of family ‘-archs’ for their branch of the family, though I doubt that any of the people at the heart of them consciously realized that this would occur. Dynamic processes and individual stories have just combined with circumstances to mold relationships that way.

Dynamic Processes

It’s important to recognize that the apparent stability of these diagrams is largely a fiction. Each family member has his or her own story to tell, and the above diagrams are simply a snapshot of the aggregate total of these dynamic processes. If I were to compile any sort of “recent” family history in the form of these diagrams, I doubt that any of them would be valid for more than a year or two at most.

This apparent stability is what makes the diagrams a useful tool for analyzing the changes from one period to the next, as each is recognizably an evolution of the previous one (I could have produced fewer diagrams, but then this visible connection between the contents would have been lost).

The diagram shown illustrates this fact by tracking the histories of my sister and myself, respectively. Like me, she lived on a property (a ‘ranch’ or ‘sheep farm’, for the benefit of non-Australians) outside of Nyngan for a while, then moved into town with the rest of the family. Then we moved to Peak Hill for a while, and then we moved back to Nyngan. Some time later, she moved to Sydney to study Nursing, but eventually she moved back to Nyngan. Again. And then she and her family moved to the Hunter Valley region, where for a while they seemed to move every few months before settling.

You’ll notice that I’m mostly omitting the reasons for these migrations; some were good and some bad. That’s because the reasons aren’t as important in this context as the fact that they occurred at all.

As for my personal travels, let me simply rattle off a list, in sequence, of the places that I’ve lived: Nyngan (bush), Nyngan (town), Peak Hill, Nyngan, Haberfield (Sydney), Nyngan, Circular Quay (Sydney), Nyngan, Crookwell, Cooma, Bondi Beach (Sydney), Lidcombe (Sydney), Top Ryde (Sydney), Petersham (Sydney), Nyngan, Wiley Park (Sydney), Burwood (Sydney), Lewisham (Sydney), Lakemba (Sydney), and now, Belmore (Sydney). You don’t need to know where these places are; in the general overview, only two broad locations matter: Nyngan and Sydney.

Adding to the picture generated by the sheer number of entries is the fact that the last two locations of the list comprise the last 25-26 years of my habitation. All the rest deal with the first 29-30 years.

Every time I moved, there was a reason. Some of the moves were voluntary, some weren’t; some were hasty scrambles as what appeared to be stable long-term situations collapsed (metaphorically) out from under me.

Yet, if I were to state – truthfully – that most of my life has been spent living in Sydney, and most of the rest in Nyngan, none of this complexity is apparent.

RPG Relevance

So it is with families in an RPG.

There was a time when I asked every player for their PC’s family background and a list of members. What I learned fairly quickly was that any such listing is just a frozen snapshot of an aggregate of personal stories, and that keeping up with them was a full-time job.

I still think it’s important for PCs to have a narrative that contains their life story to date, even if its only for their reference. But it only impacts me as GM when one of those family-member NPCs matters to the in-play game – in other words, when one of those personal narratives intersects with the personal narrative of the PC.

And, when that happens, I don’t need to update the whole family – just the part of it that the PC is going to be interacting with and any gossip that the interacter might have to share. In effect, the family dynamic gets scaled down to manageable proportions.

Things change a bit when there’s an “-arch” in the picture, regardless of whether it’s a Patriarch or Matriarch. Suddenly there’s a clearing house into which all family information flows, ready to be regurgitated whenever an out-of-touch family member gets in touch. This means that the whole “picture” needs updating from time-to-time, but the need for doing so is usually going to be fairly infrequent. Once again, in effect, the problem is scaled down to manageable proportions.

Patterns Of Individualism

This can be made even easier for the GM simply by allocating traits or patterns to the different family members – not ones that necessarily have anything to do with anything else being tracked by the GM, mind you, but ones that specifically relate to their position vis-a-vis the family collectively.

One relative might change girlfriends like the weather. Another might be involved in a scandalous relationship. A third might be unable to hold down a regular job, while a fourth is a jailbird. There will probably be a relative who is getting some form of promotion or lucky break every time they turn around, and there will be several who are held up as examples of virtuous behavior within the context of the family, and so on.

There will be branches of the family that are rarely heard from, branches that are sometimes in favor and sometimes on the outs with the rest, branches that have been estranged or simply distant for so long that the family has almost completely lost track of them.

You can even categorize family branches or sub-units by how close they are to the conduit through which news normally flows to the PC, a far more useful arrangement than a simple chronological sequence of birth (which is how players usually list family members).

Over time, these patterns can change, but they tend to be relatively fixed for long stretches of time. And that means that they can be used to shortcut the process of updating the whole-family picture when that’s necessary.

Families can be daunting

Quite a lot of the time, I find that GMs find the amount of work involved to be so daunting that they ignore the family members of the PCs except when they serve some vital purpose, or can have such a purpose forced upon them.

This isn’t all that surprising, because families are a LOT of work if you try keeping up with all the dynamic changes within on a real-time basis. But they can also be a great source of adventure hooks, occasional resources, and ongoing complications for a PC – too useful a resource to waste.

What the above section shows is that families can be made practical, from the GM’s perspective, and that this valuable resource doesn’t have to be left on the shelf.

Types of “-arch”

I’m going to conclude this article by looking at the different types of bond that can unite a family. It’s possible for the family “-arch” to fill multiple functions simultaneously, or their role can be singular in nature, that’s up to you.

Below, I’ve given eight nine ten eleven different types of “-arch” a cursory examination. Some of these, depending on society and culture, can favor Patriarchs, while others favor Matriarchs. It’s also possible for a couple to share the role, though this can grow complicated if they are ever separated.

There are definite impacts in terms of the replacement of the “-arch” when one becomes deceased. In some cases, dispersal of their role might not be an option, meaning that someone will inherit the role. The family may have little or no choice in who that is; it could be a hand-picked successor, an external appointee, or the only viable candidate due to geographic positioning. Some roles will demand a carefully-crafted succession plan; others will be more spontaneous, a reflection of individual personalities than anything else.

And, with each new occupant of the position, relationships with various family branches will begin to change. There will some who become estranged, while others draw closer to the family heart. Familial duties may be reallocated, redefined, and/or redistributed – usually without the consent of the person being “volunteered” by the new “-arch”, but always with some ulterior motive in terms of family unity or cohesion.

1. Social Hub

This is the type of “-arch” with which I am most familiar. I described it earlier as the person who sets the social agenda, makes the arrangements, is often the host and central accommodation for those in attendance, decides how lavish an event will be, who will be invited and whose attendance will be required, will structure transport plans, etc.

2. Communications Hub

The communications hub gathers the latest “news” of all branches of the family and disseminates it, perpetually reminding members in the process that they are part of a greater whole. Once it was done with mail, then by telephone, and these days it might be by social media or other electronic means.

3. The Caterer

The caterer likes to cook, and is usually good at it, and as a result, is the natural host for family gatherings and celebrations and feasts of all types. They are often the sort of person who interprets “don’t bring anything” as “only bring one or two dishes”. Waistlines in families with such a member are often expanding. There was a time when this would predominantly suit a Matriarch but these days that’s not necessarily the case, and there has always been a male equivalent (“the family barbecue”).

If the prospective caterer is not a good cook, family members won’t be enticed to gather. If they don’t like to cook, they won’t do enough of it, often enough, for their position to become central to the family. Only if their cooking is too good to resist and occurs at regular, perhaps even pre-arranged, intervals, can an individual become The Caterer.

4. Financial Hub

When one family member controls the purse-strings, they are usually the focus of the family. It takes an individual of noteworthy drive and independence to forge their own path against the wishes of this individual.

What’s more, the qualities needed to acquire or sustain the fortune that makes the individual the Financial Hub of their family usually make them equally strong-willed and determined not to let anyone escape their familial authority. To the casual observer, they can even appear petty and petulant.

Of course, the mere existence of this role means that it is also possible to view corporate entities as families, perhaps dysfunctional ones. This can be a beneficial perspective because it enables those same shortcuts used for managing family structures to be applied to this type of game entity.

5. Power Hub

Some families have a history of being involved in the wielding of authority. Sometimes called political Dynasties, probably the best-known example are the Kennedies, though there are others – the Bushes, for example.

Simply by virtue of having the ear of someone in Authority, the family members of the Power Hub receive a certain level of indirect Authority and political Protection.

But this only works if the majority of the family present a united political front, usually one dictated by the Power Hub. That means that all the usual apparatus of Authority needs to be brought to bear on the family as though they were a political party or similar body. Stray too far from the politics of the Power Hub and they will no longer support your position, which immediately compromises the power imbued by their authority; and if too many stray too far, the ability to be “one perspective in many places at once acting in unison” is dissipated.

Political parties have Party Whips to keep members in line, serve as the ears of the leader within his party, maintain the schedule of events, and so on. Families that revolve around a Power Hub will usually have a member who serves a similar function, keeping tabs on members and manipulating things behind the scenes to protect the authority of the Power Hub (doing the dirty work so that the Power Hub himself always has clean hands, in other words).

6. The Matchmaker

The role of the matchmaker is not restricted to selection of new family members; they orchestrate connections between family members with needs or problems to other family members with the knowledge and resources to satisfy or solve those needs or problems; and no union is ever ‘sanctioned’ until it is blessed by the Matchmaker.

I once saw a somewhat poetic description of this role as the “choreographer of family assets”. In some cases, the Matchmaker can micro-manage virtually every substantial decision of the family. Get on the wrong side of the Matchmaker and you my as well be disowned by the family; they simply will be busy elsewhere when you need them.

More vindictive personalities may then take the extra step of making sure that disaffected members come to need the services for which the Matchmaker is the gatekeeper. Others simply subscribe to the concept of the whole (family) being stronger than the sum of its parts.

7. The Enabler

The Enabler is, strictly speaking, a variant on the Matchmaker – one who expressly does not dictate who will or won’t be members of the family, but simply plays “matchmaker” between needs and family “assets”. Of course, in order to know what individuals can contribute, they need to get to know all members of the extended family very well.

8. The Expert/The Maker

Also described sometimes as “The Builder”. Sometimes the Patriarch, sometimes the wife of the actual Builder, this role holds the family together by providing a specific practical function to the family at cost prices or even less. Imagine a family in which every branch’s home was constructed by the one family member; the members come to him because he is cheaper than commercial rates, and he gets ongoing employment in his trade and family unity out of the bargain. How difficult would it be to refuse that family member just about anything?

The greater the differential between commercial costs and the “family rate,” the more beholden the family becomes.

What if the family member doesn’t gift in whole or part the dwellings, but retains partial or full ownership over them and rents them to family members at a pittance, transforming themselves into a property magnate in the process?

Turn this person against you, and your rent may suddenly rise dramatically – an implied threat that would rarely, if ever, need to be actually carried out.

Of course, part of the quid-pro-quo would be the return of ‘the favor’ – a lawyer would be expected to represent the family, a doctor to give free consultations, and so on.

Equally, of course, rather than a builder, the central figure might be one of these other professions who provides free or discounted services to family members “in good standing” – and makes it worth their while to do so through the acquisition of similar benefits from other family members.

Let’s be clear – every family with any internal cohesion does a few such favors, one member to another. the role of “The Expert” goes beyond that to transform the family into a semi-structured collective, binding the family together with the power of mutual self-interest.

9. The Great Protector

Some families have a figure who does nothing but solve problems, or tell the affected member how to solve their problem by the most expedient route. Over years of doing so, such individuals become the Great Protectors of their families, sheltering them from harm, caring for them, and even (occasionally) inflicting painful lessons (the “cruel to be kind” principle).

Traditionally, when this is a Maternal role, the Great Protector focuses on social issues, while a Paternal role is more likely to have a more liberal role within the family. But these roles are less likely in modern times to be constrained in this way.

10. The Spiritual Guide

This type of “-arch” is less common these days and more likely to be held by a Patriarch than a Matriarch – though that could vary in different cultures. A family controlled by a Spiritual Guide is, by definition, one in which religion is the supreme force within the family. That religious belief is the binding agent of the family, and the Spiritual Guide is its spokesman and absolute ruler.

Of course, the paternal nature of most modern religions organizations shows that the same “short cut” techniques described can also be used to simulate internal relations within a religious order or body.

11. The Noble

Probably the least-likely type of “-arch” to occur to the casual reader, but in a feudal structure the serfs who live on it are considered to be part of the land, and the Noble granted that land (and accompanying titles) is the protector of those serfs and the liaison between them and his superiors. In effect, they can be considered his extended “family”, and – to whatever extent they overlap with his own self-interest – he represents their interests within society.

The Noble obviously fills many of the roles described above – he grants or denies leave for marriages, he controls the economy of his domain, and so on. He is clearly a Power Hub, to boot (consider the authority of his children derived by virtue of their relationship with him), and is often the Social Hub as well. When he celebrates, everyone celebrates; when he does not, individual celebrations are, at the very least, disrespectful (at least in his eyes).

Of course, he has his own family, who occupy a wholly different tier within his society, and that might be why this perspective frequently escapes notice. Or it might be because too few of them took the responsibilities of this position toward the serfs within their domains seriously.

Families don’t have to be scary, but they do have to be managed, and central to the definition of each (and to how that management is best achieved by the harried GM) is an understanding of the type of “-arch” at the familial center, if any.

In fact, I would define this fact before I started considering siblings and parentage. That’s how important it is. And the one inescapable fact is that every PC will have a family of some kind; you can’t escape them. They might be dead, or lost, or estranged, but they are there nevertheless. Ignore that fact at your peril.

Well, if you can’t ignore it in safely, the only thing left to do is to manage it!

Star Destroyer image by Pixabay.com/Janson_G, Starfield background by Pixabay.com/FrancescoValla, editing and compositing by Mike

At the end of the last Pulp session, one of our players informed my co-GM and I that they might not be able to attend the next session. Because sessions of this campaign are a month apart, this constituted ample notice, and we’re going to be able to carry on without him. We’re sure that his absence from the player-Gestalt will be noticed; some ideas and historical reference are more likely to be forthcoming from his contributions than those of any other participant, though they each have their strengths.

Quite a while back, I analyzed a comprehensive list of possible strategies a GM can use to cope with a player absence (Missing In Action: Maintaining a campaign in the face of player absence). Nevertheless, I knew that even this list was sometimes inadequate to the needs of the real world, which is why I was so delighted to add a new solution to my stockpile a few months ago (Tales of Yore: An Absent Player Solution).

Even so, I’m always on the lookout for more techniques in this area, because no two campaigns are quite alike and the demands they impose on GM responses to this all-too-common real-world problem are likewise not prone to cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all solutions.

Which brings me to (the original) Star Wars.

Millennium Falcon image by pixabay.com/JAKO5D

Star Wars…. again

I recently had occasion to watch this movie for the umpteenth time, and – as is often the case – began to review what I was seeing from the perspective of an RPG campaign. But, because of the aforementioned notification, my point-of-view within that broader context was a little different to that of each other occasion: If Star Wars were an RPG campaign, and the protagonists all (or mostly all) PCs, what would the plot structure teach about gaming dynamics?

Analysis

To answer this question, I listed every “scene” (using a more PG-relevant definition of the term than the one used by movie and TV types), breaking the movie down into individual adventures of roughly equal playing time, then looking for patterns and attempting to relate them to the familiar problems faced by GMs.

Naturally, I had to impose a rule or two, a ‘campaign style’ if you will, in order to define boundary points for those adventures. So, the primary rule is this: Adventures end on a cliffhanger. The secondary rule is this: Characters whose players are absent are to have minimal relevance to events, though they may be handed pages of exposition if the content is relevant to their character; this is a mechanism by which the GM can inform the players of the game mechanics and background of the campaign.

These rules seem reasonable given that a primary stylistic inspiration for the movie were the Saturday Movie Serials of Lucas’ youth.

So, here goes:

Adventure #1

• The battle in space
• Secret Mission / Droids into Escape Pod
• Leia Captured, Intro Vader
• Droids in the Desert
• Droids split up
• Captured by Jawa

Adventure #2

• Droid reunion
• Prisoners of the Jawa
• Arrival, intro Luke
• Purchase / Threat of separation / ‘Bad motivator’
• Cleaning / Partial Message
• Ominous Tales Of Old Ben

Adventure #3

• Runaway droid
• Mystery of Luke’s father (not a farmer) [presume this was overheard by Luke]
• Pursuit by Luke & C3PO
• Hints of Sandpeople / Reunion with R2D2
• Fight with the Sandpeople
• Luke & C3PO defeated

Adventure #4

• Rescue by Old Ben
• Obi-wan & background exposition
• The Message
• The Quest – refused (“I’m just playing my character” I)
• Leia – Intro Moff Tarkin & Death Star
• Threat to destroy the rebellion

Adventure #5

• Jawa slaughter aftermath
• Fresh motivation for Luke
• Leia interrogation begins
• Luke signs up to the Quest
• Arrival at Mos Eisley
• Checkpoint / Jedi mind tricks
• Cantina
• Luke gets into trouble

Adventure #6

• A quick bar-fight
• Intro Chewbacca & Han Solo / Negotiations
• Greedo
• Death Star To Alderaan
  • INSERTED SCENE: Jabba & Han
• Millennium Falcon
• Stormtrooper informant (not witnessed by a PC, Presumed to have been inferred by Obi-wan)

Adventure #7

• Stormtroopers vs. Millennium Falcon
• Imperial Cruiser vs Millennium Falcon (raising the stakes)
• Leia vs Tarkin, the threat to Alderaan
• Leia surrenders the location of the rebel base
• Alderaan destroyed

Adventure #8

• Jedi training / Downtime / Exposition
• Leia’s deceit revealed/discovered
• Alderaan arrival – Millennium Falcon
• Short-range Tie fighter
• “That’s no moon – it’s a space station”
• Tractor beam / Bravado / Captured Falcon

Adventure #9

• Smuggler’s holds
• Stormtrooper disguises
• Obi-wan to sabotage tractor beam
• Discovery of the Princess
• Han & Chewie accept Luke’s side-quest
• “Prisoner transfer” bluff – will it work?

Adventure #10

• The gunfight
• Han’s failed bluff roll / “Luke, we’re gonna have company!”
• Rescue Leia
• Cornered / gunfight
• Trapped in the garbage chute
• ….with the creature!

Adventure #11

• The walls begin to close
• C3PO / R2D2 bluff
• Droids to the rescue
• Obi-wan sabotages tractor beam
• Running firefights
• The chasm (a literal cliffhanger!)

Adventure #12

• Chasm Swing
• Firefight continues
• Vader confronts Obi-wan, the duel begins
• Re-boarding the Falcon
• Ben’s “Surrender” / Luke fails his stealth roll

Adventure #13

• Exit the Death Star / Did Obi-wan have enough time to finish?
• The sentry ship firefight
• Escape
• “That was too easy…”
• Arrival Yavin IV, but the Empire will be coming

Adventure #14

• Briefing / Death Star weakness
• 30 minutes to Imperial Victory
• Han Leaves (“I’m just playing my character” II)
• Personal moments – old friends & goodbyes / calm before the storm
• Fighter launch / 15 minutes to Imperial Victory

Adventure #15

• Attack on the Death Star part 1: defensive emplacements
• Attack on the Death Star part 2: fighters vs fighters
• Gold Squad attack run vs Vader
• One minute to Imperial Victory

Adventure #16 (Extra length)

• Luke’s squad attacks the death star – the final throw of the dice
• “Use the Force, Luke” / shut off the Targeting computer
• R2D2 hit
• Rebel base in range of the Death Star / Luke stripped of escort
• Vader lines up on Luke’s fighter
• Millennium Falcon intervention / Vader escapes
• A shot in a million / reunion with Han
• Victory celebrations / R2D2 repaired / campaign wrap

Whew!

A couple of notes:

1. The garbage-masher monster is clearly used as a filler, something to occupy the characters in the garbage unit until the Droid characters are available to not be there to save the day! Either that, or he changed plans after thinking of a way to involve the Droids in the escape! Either is plausible.

2. “I’m just playing my character” I and II – we’ve all had adventures and even campaigns go off the rails because one player insisted in his character taking a left turn, even knowing – at a meta-game level – that it was going to cause the GM a plot problem. Examine these two incidents carefully, and note how our fictitious GM has been able to get the campaign (and adventure) back on track without telling the players “I can’t let you do that”.

Appearance Tally

You begin to see some interesting patterns when you look at the presence or lack thereof of each of the main characters in individual adventures.

• Leia – has brief but significant roles in 1, 4, 5, 7, and 8. For adventures 10-14, she is an equal participant – and note that this is when the character joins the main party. Finally, she is a minor character, present only to look worried or proud, in adventures 15 and 16.
• R2D2 is a major character in 1-5, has a minor presence in 6-8, has significant roles in 9 and 11, minor roles in 12-13, significant roles in 14 and 15, and is seemingly killed off early in 16 leaving only a minor presence at the end.
• C3PO – is a major character in 1-5, a minor presence in 6-7, significant roles in 8, 9, 11, then a minor presence in 12-13, a substantial presence in 14, and is even more marginalized than Leia in 15 and most of 16.
• Luke – is a featured character from his first appearance in Adventure 2 all the way through to the end of the campaign in Adventure 16. Note that there is absolutely no reason why he couldn’t have had solo scenes in Adventure #1, and some versions of the script included such scenes, introducing Biggs (who would then turn up again in the rebel base).
• Ben/Obi-wan – has a substantial role in 4-6, 8-9, 11, and 12. Note that in the latter two, his action is separate to that of the main party.
• Han – has significant roles in 6-14 and 16. It would have been easy to give him a minor role in 15, simply by removing his final line from 14 and setting it on-board the Millennium Falcon in 15 – “Don’t look at me that way, I know what I’m doing.”
• Chewie – always has slightly less-significant roles than Han, but makes significant contributions in 6-13, and has a minor presence in 14 and 16.

Vader and friends pic by Pixabay.com/Voltordu

Campaign Pacing – quests within quests within quests

Looking over the detailed breakdown, it’s hard not to be struck by the fact that for much of the movie, the goal is simply to get into a position to undertake the next quest. You can divide the movie into three acts: Tattooine, Death Star, and Yavin IV. The whole purpose of the Tattooine sequence is to get the PCs to the Death Star; the whole purpose of the Death Star sequences are to escape to Yavin IV, having united the party; and the over-arching quest of the whole movie is encompassed by the final battle.

Within each of these, there are smaller quests – the Droids escaping the Empire, R2 getting to old Ben, rescuing the Princess, and so on. And within each of those is the quest simply to get out of whatever trouble the PCs were in at the end of each adventure.

Stately inevitability

It’s also worth noting that there appears to be an inevitability to the appearance of certain characters. Consider how the outcome of subsequent events might have been changed had Luke and Obi-wan hired some other freighter captain and ship back in the Bar on Tattooine!

These are exactly the kind of look-the-other-way meta-gaming that players and GM are routinely forced to confront in an RPG.

Han can demand an outrageous price for his services during his introductory negotiations, but he knows that if the player handling Ben makes a half-reasonable counter-offer (with assistance from the GM, who is pulling the strings) he will have to accept it to get the party together and the adventure on the road.

The PC Roster

So, which of the characters are PCs, which are NPCs, and which are sometime PCs?

It’s hard not to look over the adventure content breakdowns and synopsis in terms of minor/significant roles in given adventures and not get the impression of players being there some of the time and absent at others.

R2D2 model image by Pixabay.com/aldobarquin

The initial roster: two droids

It’s obvious, in this contextual interpretation, that the two Droids are amongst the players initially signed up to play in the campaign. The first five adventures feature them quite heavily.

It also seems clear that thereafter, they begin to be sidelined except when the GM makes a special effort to include them, and that the player handling R2D2 feels this more acutely and loses interest more quickly, or perhaps, is more overcome by external circumstances.

My personal impression is that, if Star Wars were an RPG, R2D2 at least (and possibly both droids) are NPCs in adventures 6 & 7.

In adventure 8, R2 is an NPC but C3PO is present. In 9, both are present, but in 10 they are both absent. In 11, they both play significant roles – but are non-participating observers for the main action. And, at this point, the player behind R2 leaves the campaign, only to be lured back by the promise of a significant role in the space combat Big Finale (14 and 15). His role is not quite what was advertised and by 16, he’s had enough. (However, he and the GM remain friends, and with the promise of more hacking opportunities in future, he comes back for the sequels!)

The initial roster: is Leia a PC?

I have two – no, three – thoughts, when it comes to this question.

First, take a quick look back at the character’s first 5 appearances – these are exactly the sort of sideways involvement you might write in for a character whose player informs you that their appearance will be sporadic until half-way through the campaign. Aside from the first adventure, is there any one of those appearances that could not have been written as solo-play vignettes and dropped into place whenever the player was next present? This is not the only such example – so I’ve given this thought it’s own subsection in the discussion below.

Second, Leia might have been PLANNED to be a PC, and the driving force behind Luke’s plot. It would be easy to rewrite Star Wars as R2D2 hiding aboard the Death Star while the Princess and her Protocol Droid escape to Tattooine in an escape pod. Of course, various character interactions would change, but it’s easy to imagine Leia recruiting Luke and Obi-wan, conducting the negotiations with Han for a much more dangerous mission than simple providing transport to Alderaan, and so on. Heck, she’s a General in the resistance, so she could even play Chess with Chewie with only minor changes to the dialogue! But, having integrated the planned PC with the plotlines for the first adventures, the player is forced to downgrade his attendance – this sort of thing happens in real life – and the GM scrambles to a solution at the last minute before the first adventure.

Leia is clearly a PC in 10-14. Anything more is questionable speculation.

As for my third thought:

The Obi-wan/Leia coincidence

Let’s say you’re a player and create Princess Leia as a character in the new space opera campaign, “Star Wars”, only to be told that the campaign will sideline the character until half-way through aside from brief but significant appearances. But the GM then offers you a bargain: in the meantime, you can play a character who is significantly more powerful than the other PCs, but who is to be written out at that midpoint. The “downside”: you will get to be the GM’s conduit for backstory and campaign concepts to the other players/PCs. So, from time to time, you will have to interpret information provided by the GM into character dialogue / exposition.

Aside from one sequence when she’s a Hologram, Leia and Obi-wan never have a shared scene in the movie. Even when they appear in the same adventure – 4 through 6 and 11-12 – they are plot-isolated from each other.

You can add depth to this speculation by asking this: Would it have significantly changed this movie if Ben had survived his battle with Vader, however badly injured, and been amongst the Leia/C3PO group in the rebel base, then used his powers (despite his desperately weakened state) to reach out to aid/guide Luke (“Use the Force, Luke”)? Given the obvious answer, why did Obi-wan have to die? Was it so that the player would never be confronted with playing two characters simultaneously? (Of course, in the real world, the answer is completely different – but in the fictional context of “If Star Wars were an RPG campaign”, this makes perfect sense!)

Variations on the theme are possible. Leia may have been another player’s planned PC, as described earlier, but that player had to withdraw. After Adventure 9, the player tells the GM that he’s unhappy with the character and wants to leave the campaign. The GM responds with a counter-offer: take over Leia, and let’s give Obi-wan a heroic send-off. If you were playing a campaign in those circumstances, it’s something you’d at least have to think about. Instead of playing Adventure 10, you spend game time rewriting Leia and growing more enthusiastic about the idea… it sounds at least plausible, doesn’t it?

One explanation: The Obi-wan Dichotomy

Assuming that some form of the above speculation would be correct in this context, it remains to offer some plausible reason why the player in back of Obi-wan might tire of the character.

For me, there is one notable potential answer, something that bugs me every time I watch the movie – and, if you hear it, you may find yourself similarly afflicted. It doesn’t ruin it completely, but it nags at me.

So if you don’t want to risk it, scroll down to the next section heading NOW.

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Still with me?

It’s my contention that the downfall of “Obi-wan” was, and is, “Old Ben”. This folksy characterization submerges the powerful and wise Jedi Master beneath a cloak of eccentric old-timer. From the time of the discovery of the Jawa Massacre, the character is in full “Obi-wan” mode, having thrown off that cloak, but the other characters – especially Han – continue to treat him as “Old Ben” even if they have never met that persona. Every time the character tries to get mystic and spiritual, his pomposity is punctured by Han’s sarcastic pessimism. “Where did you dig up that old fossil?”

Some characters naturally lock into place in the genre and style of the “campaign” – Luke, Han, Leia, even 3PO in a strongly character-driven way. Others don’t quite develop the boisterous exuberance of the adventure setting. Obi-wan, the Jedi Knight, fits right in – but he only really appears in the combat sequence with Vader and the “These are not the droids you are looking for” scene. The rest of the time, he is trying to be mysterious and spiritual, but the other characters won’t let him.

The inevitable result is frustration. It’s worth noting that Leia is just as spiritual and mystic,especially in the sequels, as is Luke on occasion, but they use it as a surface patina to that “boisterous exuberance” that I mentioned, and Leia in particular punctures it with wit, sarcasm and a touch of boots-and-all fatalism, deflecting Han’s jibes in the process.

I think that, in the real world, at least one generation of the shooting script might have used “old Ben” for the character name when dialogue is given, and that this colored the perceptions of the inexperienced actors even if it was later changed. And “Old Ben” stuck.

This illustrates five lines of the conversation between three people (A, B, and C) as described.

Player Groupings: Pairs and Triangles

Another point that I noticed was this: it’s natural for the GM to try and pair characters together. It makes conversations easy to anticipate, it’s easy to find points of commonality or conflict that can drive role-play, and so on.

Star Wars does this, too – the two droids; Luke and C3PO when R2D2 goes off on his own; Han and Chewie, Luke and Ben, Han and Leia, Luke and Leia. All of these are bonding moments of one kind or another, either reflecting a pre-existing bond or forging a new one – even the incendiary fractiousness of the initial Han / Leia relationship cements into place a relationship between the two characters.

Triangles are far harder to predict, but far more capable of driving character development and dynamic roleplay. Triangles contain three relationship pairs, tripling the capacity for a conversational reaction to an in-game event or statement.

What’s more, it’s typical for the outsider to then react to the interplay between the members of the relationship pair having the conversation, which will usually engage a different relationship pairing with one of the two members of the previously-invoked pair, and momentarily making the other member the new outsider, compelling them to engage with one of the two – either their original conversational partner or the new entrant.

Each piece of dialogue between them stimulates a new one – provided that all three participants are equally extroverted in self-expression. And, to some extent, the GM can manipulate the flow of this conversation simply by looking at one of the players as though expecting a reply. If one is not immediately forthcoming, simply shifting gaze to the person who was just spoken to transfers the psychological onus.

Note that if you look down at any point, however, this “stage direction” is broken, and the driving factor becomes the personalities of the players, not the characters.

It follows that groups of three – even if one is an NPC – are far more effective roleplaying structures than groups of two.

It’s also worth contemplating a group of four – after all, if three is better than two… Unfortunately, this theory doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. If you have four, you can have two simultaneous conversations (making it harder for anyone to be heard), which can lead to two or more people replying to the same player at the same time (garbling both responses, in all probability), and corner-to-corner conversations, which are even worse as people try to talk over the top of another conversation. And, just in case you thought that was the sum total of the potential for trouble, the square can fragment into two pairs, leading to two of the players “involved” in the square ignoring the other two, and vice-versa.

The same problems beset combinations of 6, or 8. As a general rule of thumb, even-numbered groups larger than two are bad news for roleplaying; add an NPC into the conversation ASAP!

That being said, smaller groups are ultimately more responsive – so groups of two and three are always to be preferred – when it comes to roleplaying.

Drop-in plot sequences

Throughout the movie, characters are given scenes that can be dropped in whenever the ‘player’ is in attendance (and held back or downplayed if they are not). Does it really matter whether or not the Droid’s bluff when discovered in the Death Star) takes place in adventure 10 or 11? So long as they are out of contact when the main group get stuck in the garbage masher, the sequence can be dropped in anytime after they leave to rescue Leia from the Detention level.

The same is true of Ben sabotaging the tractor beam, prior to the confrontation with Vader – the movie has that in what I have designated adventure 11, but it could just as easily be in adventure 10.

Leia’s early appearances are obvious examples, as mentioned earlier.

This is exactly the sort of restructuring that can be performed if a player give sufficient notice that they won’t be able to attend – provided that you have planned your adventures that way.

Which brings me back to the Pulp campaign, and the impending absence of a central character. Due to the plot circumstances, we can’t really have the character go off on his own, but there are only a couple of significant contributions / character moments planned that can’t be handed off to one of the PCs who are in attendance. There are a couple of occasions when the character’s skills might be useful – we can roll for those, as necessary, and we normally have a “plan B” in case the character fails the skill check, anyway; the latter may change the path of the adventure, but not it’s overall trajectory. And the character has one vital clue to impart to the other PCs that no-one else can supply – but it’s entirely possible, even likely, that this won’t come up until the player is back with the group. Given enough notice to isolate the scenes and sequences that have to belong to that character from those that simply give him a fair share of the spotlight, and to redistribute the latter amongst the other PCs, we can simply have the character retreat from the spotlight most of the time.

Tomcat Kitten photo courtesy Pixabay.com / drazewski

Clickbait. That one word can open a fascinating can of worms in any discussion, should anyone care to sample the contents.

In researching this article through Wikipedia, “Clickbait” led me to “Betteridge’s law of Headlines” which led me to “Sensationalism”, while the original article also called up “Yellow Journalism” and “Media Manipulation”.

I’m going to touch on most of these, and a few things more, in the course of this article, before pulling out a silver lining or two to the whole mess.

I can’t make it worth tolerating a world inundated by Clickbait, but I can at least squeeze some value out of the reality.

Clickbait Definition

“Clickbait” is generally considered to be a website link that is designed to entice the viewer to click through to a specific link or video.

In my book, there are four major types of Clickbait:

• Clickbait that attempts to exploit the “Curiosity Gap”, providing just enough information to make the reader curious about the content being linked to;
• Clickbait that acts to reinforce or capitalize on a reader’s justifiable interest in a subject only to manipulate or apply only tangentially to that interest;
• Clickbait that attempts to enrage, indignate, outrage, or otherwise to play on the typical reader’s emotions;
• Clickbait that utilizes the advertising maxim of creating a problem which can be solved by clicking the link.

Of these, only the first is “officially” considered Clickbait, but that’s just a case of definitions lagging behind the reality; before something can be classified and categorized, it needs to be experienced and analyzed.

Sensationalist Headlines

It’s a fact of life: in order to compete, headlines have had to bend toward the sensationalist over the years. This goes all the way back to the newspaper war between William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, in which both resorted to Yellow Journalism for wider appeal. In modern times, because of the Pulitzer Prizes, many people would expect that Pulitzer was a standard-bearer for respectable journalism, but that’s at best only half-true.

Pulitzer, in general, didn’t manufacture news, but regularly sensationalized accounts of real events in order to outsell competitors who didn’t engage in the practice. This was a hugely successful approach; the old guard could not compete with it. Pulitzer drew the line at actually fabricating stories, however.

These days, the practice of sensationalizing headlines is so ubiquitous that it is not an indicator of journalistic integrity. I consider this the most tolerable and understated form of Clickbait – an attention-getting headline that leads to an article of acceptable quality and integrity.

This is also the standard that I aspire to adhere to, as a minimum – though I often add subtitles to clarify the subjects of my articles.

Would I get as many readers if I didn’t? I suspect that I would get more visitors, but would get fewer readers – and that devaluation of search engine results might even more than “compensate”, reducing the actual number of visitors in the long run.

That, of course, is the hidden motive behind being more explicit in subject description – if I mention “Encounters” or “Plot” in those subtitles, it means that any search engine will bring up my article when someone searches for “Encounters” or “Plot”, respectively, giving the “Clickbait” part of the title the opportunity to snag a reader.

Which is entirely ethical, in my view – provided the article actually delivers on those keyword promises of relevance.

Sensationalist Content

This left him vulnerable to an upstart rival with no such scruples (Hearst). As the war between the two grew more desperate and more heated, especially after Hearst stole many of Pulitzer’s best writers and editors out from under him, the two engaged in a race for the gutter (as they perceived it), which ultimately brought Pulitzer to the point of violating his own rules – just once, in desperation, as a newsboy’s strike brought both to their knees.

Horrified – or so the legend states – by the depths to which he had sunk, Pulitzer settled for second place and returned to his own ethical standards of journalism, sponsoring journalism schools and creating the prizes that still bear his name to reward quality in Journalistic practice and literature.

Of course, in the decades to come, new publishers would discover that the lines between fact and fiction could be blurred, and that the old “gutter” had a penthouse view of the true street-scene. Supermarket Tabloids such as the National Enquirer set new “standards” for Journalism, to the point that Tabloid Journalism is sometimes considered a distinct style to Yellow Journalism, though (in reality) one is simply a more extreme form of the other.

In the 70s and 80s, the National Enquirer became infamous for headlines such as “Elvis ate my cat” (to invent one from whole cloth in the style). These were the forerunners of the most pernicious forms of Clickbait – you just have to imagine the headline as a clickable link to the story.

Of course, such headlines are also completely obvious to most people. If you click on one, you know exactly what you’re going to get – a work of journalistic fiction. Other forms of Clickbait are more pernicious.

Sensationalist Celebrity Magazines

There’s a TV program in Australia called Media Watch (while the program itself might not be available overseas, certainly the transcripts on their website will be – just click on the “official website” link at the bottom of the Wikipedia article). (This isn’t the only occasion that I’ll be citing them as a source in this article, which justifies the featured mention!)

Since April this year, one of their pet peeves has been the achievement of a new low in celebrity-focused women’s magazines – not merely inventing stories about the celebrities from whole cloth, but inventing the photographic “evidence”:

• “Photoshopping Jen and Brad”, Episode 10 – April 16, 2018;
• “Photoshopping Jen and Brad, Again”, Episode 16 – May 28, 2018, and, most recently,
• “NW – The Art Of Fabrication”, Episode 22 – July 9, 2018.

Whenever President Trump rails against “fake news”, this is the standard to which he is equating those who publish opinions contrary to his own. Astonishingly, some people seem to believe him – but then, some people considered the National Enquirer factual in the 70s and 80s, too. “Elvis ate my dog”, anyone?

Gossip For Dollars

Such magazine have always purveyed Celebrity Gossip for Dollars, but over the last decade or two, the Gossip has completely taken over the content. There was a time when teens could pick up an issue with a serious biography of a famous artist and it would be 99% factual in nature.

Not any more. Again, I think this has resulted from a need to compete for sales – this time with the supermarket tabloids. Their solution: become their enemy.

I’ve never read an article that claimed reading such trash could lower your IQ or soften your brains. Such an article would also, undoubtedly, be Clickbait. But it would have more journalistic credibility than this trash – though that’s just my opinion.

The wonder is that they aren’t sued more often. But there was a perception until mid-2017 that celebrities wouldn’t sue – and, if they did, that they wouldn’t get paid very much, at least here in Australia – because payouts were (supposedly) capped at A$250,000. Then came the lawsuit for defamation by Rebel Wilson against the publishers of Women’s Day which resulted in a record judgment of more than $4.5 million in damages (Media Watch, “Rebel gets the last laugh”, September 18, 2017). This was later reduced on appeal, but still paid far in excess of the $250,000 cap, and – it was to be hoped – put some journalistic integrity back into the magazines in question. The articles linked to above show how big a deterrence it has proven to be, in the long run. More recently, we have had Geoffrey Rush suing the Daily Telegraph for defamation, and last week, Sir Cliff Richard won a suit for invasion of privacy against the BBC.

Lawsuits are supposed to be the counterbalancing driving force to such trends – a punishment for inauthenticity. Instead, the prevailing ‘wisdom’ appears to be, “any publicity is good publicity” – and that might very well be true, from the perspective of the celebrities in question, but it ignores the greater damage being done.

This is the cause of a social attitude within western culture that not only tolerates but fosters Clickbait. And it also is the shape of journalism to come, the new standard beyond which any improvement is considered quality journalism – unless something is done. It’s a scary thought: that Donald Trump’s “Fake News” might not be wrong, just ahead of its time.

Hopefully, I’m just being alarmist. There are, in fact, a number of counter-offensives against “Fake News” currently underway. I’ll come to them a little later.

Viral Phenomena

‘Viral Phenomena’ – memes, videos, advertising campaigns, news, and gossip – refers to an object to which a pattern of behavior enabled by social technology can be employed as a description of the spread of connections to the object. In the early 2000s, “going viral” was considered the holy grail of advertising. These days, it has somewhat less cache.

“Going Viral” means that the number of people who are motivated to access the media in response to a link being shared (usually, but not necessarily, through social media) exceeds the depletion of the pool of receptive available viewers that occurs as a result of their having already viewed the media.

One person watches something, finds it interesting, intriguing, or whatever, and shares it. Because they have now watched it, this takes them out of the pool of potential viewers of the media. If the number who click through to the media as a result, or who share it if it’s included in the transmission, are more than the number who have already viewed it, the content spreads at an exponential rate. Eventually, though, it reaches the point where everyone who would share it has already seen it, and the viral retransmission process collapses.

When the phenomenon was first identified, it was a conduit to free inclusion in traditional media – your content might be aired on the evening news, for example. Some products and campaigns achieved a cross-over to a completely different group of potential re-broadcasters as a result. The term stems from the similarity to the way computer viruses spread.

In the 2010s, as the phenomenon became more clearly understood, and people grew more accustomed to the content on offer, it became harder to achieve virality; early examples drew attention just because the phenomenon was new. This also meant that the rewards of achieving virality also began to mitigate; in effect, merely going viral was no longer newsworthy, you needed content that could sustain interest as well. In addition, greater access to analytic tools meant that the actual alteration in behavior that resulted became a more important metric to advertisers and their clients.

It didn’t matter how viral your advertising was if people weren’t motivated to actually buy the product or message that you were providing, in other words, and the costs of developing a marketing campaign “to go viral” could no longer be justified unless the certainty of returns were commensurate.

“Viewers multiplied by rebroadcast rate multiplied by conversion rate and divided by the cost” defined a value to the advertiser of all the different possible marketing campaigns that could be directly compared with the alternatives, permitting an unbiased perception of the return on advertising investment.

Nevertheless, where the primary objective is simply to get eyes onto a screen looking at your content so that those who are advertising on your site are exposed to a mass audience, or where all you want to do is get noticed or get some inherently-included message out to the masses, viral marketing remains a viable strategy.

It’s fair to describe Clickbait as an attempt at achieving virality with your content. You not only want people to click on the link, you want them to rebroadcast the link to others. For a while, it seemed that people were rebroadcasting links without actually clicking on the link themselves, and you could get away with nothing more than a provocative headline or tag message; it didn’t matter what the actual content was, or if it delivered on the promises of the headline/tagline; they got you to the site, that was all they wanted to achieve.

Behavior patterns on the part of the public soon began to resist, though – content that didn’t actually deliver or that was so overwhelmed by advertising as to crash the browser (it happened a time or two!) began to decline. It’s not completely gone, but it’s a lot lower in frequency than it was.

And people who are passionate about the internet as a means of communication rejoiced, thinking that this was one battle that had been won – just as Pulitzer thought that he had “won” by driving his old-school rivals out of business or into emulating the new standards of journalism that he had created. Both had the same blind spot – the assumption that the headline would connect to accurate and valid information, regardless of the sensationalizing of the headline.

If the message to which the Clickbait links is mendacious, or distorted in perspective, but pretends to be otherwise, the Clickbait can’t be considered false advertising. And that inevitably leads to the creation of right-wing media like Breitbart and their left-wing analogues such as the Huffington Post to exploit this bypassing of the ‘credibility filter’ that people had developed.

The Social Media Echo-chamber

This provides another way of perceiving viral phenomena such as marketing: as an attempt to generate content that utilizes the social media echo-chamber to amplify the marketing effort.

I’ve written about that echo-chamber before, and don’t see any need to rehash the discussions here. Instead, let me just point you at the most relevant article: ‘The Greater Society Of Big Bad Wolves: RPG Villains of the blackest shade‘, which (in the section “The Psychological Effects of Power,” half-way down) discusses the Echo Chamber and its causes, and relating it to other psychological phenomena such as the Stanford Prison Experiment.

(Alleged) Russian Manipulations

Let me be honest – I don’t think there’s much doubt anymore that the Russian government attempted to manipulate the American political landscape in such a way that Donald Trump’s campaign would weaken the Clinton government that everyone expected to result from the 2016 US Presidential elections. But the claims and evidence still haven’t actually been tested in a court of law, so there remains the slightest sliver of hesitation.

But what did they (allegedly) do? Really? And how can it be suggested that there was no impact on the outcome?

Setting aside the hacking of the DNC’s servers and subsequent release of information damaging to the Clinton campaign, what you have essentially is a bunch of politically-charged memes and links to “news” that was distorted systematically to heighten distrust of the political center and political establishment.

Would any of these stories have changed votes? The most likely answer is “not directly”, though they created a climate in which it became possible for an outsider like Trump to steal votes from the disaffected. “Give me a lever and a place to stand and I will move the earth” wrote Archimedes – the alleged Russian meddling was the lever that enabled Trump to move the Political World four paces to the Right and several steps toward the conspiracy fringe. You know them – they’re the ones who used to believe the National Enquirer.

The Really Fake News

Whenever I hear mention of “fake news”, one of three thoughts follows it: The celebrity magazines (discussed earlier), the (alleged) Russian manipulations (described above), or – perhaps the worst of the lot – the Really Fake News.

This involves paying a broadcaster to dress up advertising as a news story and broadcast it within the news.

It started innocuously enough – a plug for sponsors during a chat show or variety show. Then came specific segments on products within such programming, but more especially as part of the breakfast shows. These evolved into infomercials, which have come to dominate late-night TV (a note to anyone involved in such “programs”: I will never, Ever, EVER buy something (or even express interest in it) without being told the price).

Then we got whole shows that are 50% or more sponsor messages, like “Studio 10”, which identifies itself as a Talk Show but which spends most of its time with the hosts talking to sponsors about their products. But they don’t deceive – they provide prices for the products, and viewers at least know what they are in for when they tune in. These are – essentially – the old variety shows without the variety.

But things have taken an altogether more serious and deceptive route in the last year or so. Once again, Media Watch was on the job:

• “Junketing journalists”, Media Watch, 23 October 2017, in which Australia’s national Airline, Qantas, got a week of free media by flying 30 journalists to Seattle to cover the opening of a new air route between the US and Australia. Most organizations disclosed the relationship between the story and the airline, but Channels 7 and 9 got a rap over the knuckles for failing to do so. Similar stories surrounded the Winter Olympics in Socchi.
• “Spot the sponsored content”, Media Watch, 25 September 2017, which takes a general overview of the situation as it applies to various Media organizations;
• “Nine News for sale”, Media Watch, February 5, 2018, which reveals that the network had run “sponsored content for a major advertiser in [it’s] afternoon bulletins” in late January;
• “More ads masquerading as news”, Media Watch, March 5, 2018, this time, on Network 10’s “Studio 10”, and pushing the health claims of a sponsoring product;
• “Prime Time PR puff”, Media Watch, 24 April 2017, in which an hour-long advertisement on a commercial network paid for and editorially-controlled by the advertiser, was broadcast as a News Special.

These stories are becoming “the new normal”, according to important industry figures, due to the declining viewership of non-internet, paid, delivery-on-demand services. The newspapers have been facing a similar decline for a decade, and the term on the lips of every organization hoping to survive is “integrated platform”. Cost-cutting has led to content being taken directly from outside sources like Reddit with little-or-no fact-checking effort (Media Watch, May 1, 2017). Sponsor influence has also blatantly invaded the editorial controls of the main news bulletins. It is reaching the point where it can be hard to distinguish between advertorials and news bulletins, and the former are disguised to look like the latter.

There had been the occasional bungle in advertising, but nothing like this. We were used to stories like Nine’s Today show launching a health crusade against sugar while spruiking sponsor’s sugary snack foods (Media Watch, 11 June 2018) – all the network’s morning shows had made the occasional gaff such as this in the past. It happens. But such segments actually reinforced the separation between actual content and sponsored “content”, so they were tolerable – you could tell which parts to listen to, and which to ignore.

Anything that erodes the confidence that the viewer can have in their news sources opens the door to partisan extremism, exactly the same as that allegedly perpetrated on the US by the Russians.

Weakening controls over commercial behavior and waning standards in a desperate economic climate for the traditional media are to blame. But the cause doesn’t matter; it’s the end result that is significant.

I have absolutely no reason not to believe that the same forces are extant in the US, and the UK, and Japan, and Germany… the Russians may have accelerated an already-present trend, and nothing more. The concern is that focusing on preventing future interference may be deemed sufficient to counter the consequences, leaving nothing to stop the underlying social trend.

Of course, it’s the Reddit connection that brings this discussion back to Clickbait. This is clearly the Clickbait phenomenon feeding back into the mainstream media, and eroding its credibility.

Propaganda Pamphlets

Here’s another way to look at what Russia supposedly did in 2016: think of it as the internet equivalent of paying people to stand on street corners and hand out propaganda pamphlets that look like they were locally printed.

The difference is that most people are inherently suspicious of pamphlets, suspecting that they might be propaganda; they seem to have no such filter when it comes to the internet. “You can’t believe everything you read on the net” is advice that everyone should know by now and take to heart, but it seems that we all have multiple blind spots in that protection, perhaps because all content looks alike.

It’s not like a newspaper, where page count and page size make an obvious difference – the day an alt-whatever news pamphlet gets to the same dimensions as the New York Times or USA Today is the day it can be taken to have achieved the same standards of face-value credibility. But on the internet, you only ever see one page of the whole at a time, and money spent dressing up one page applies to all the other pages automatically.

Scams & Phishing

There have been a couple of nasty scams floating around Australia over the last year or so. Nasty because they take advantage of people, or because they are more credible (and hence dangerous) than those that have been seen before.

One of them targets Chinese immigrants, claiming that there has been a problem with their visa and that unless they stump up A$$$$ for a quick processing fee, they will face deportation within the week.

Another has fooled people into thinking they’ve been called up for Jury Duty and have to log onto a website (link provided) and provide all sorts of personal details for verification – in reality, it’s a Phishing trap.

And the number of phone calls I’ve received from those allegedly representing insurance companies, or lawyers interested in suing same, stating that “someone there had a car accident not too long ago” would be enough to make me a wealthy man at a relatively low price per call.

These are, to my way of thinking, “Binary Content”, i.e. content in two parts – one used to enhance the credibility and clickability of the enclosed Clickbait link, and the payload at the other end of the link. And, like more traditional forms of Clickbait, they erode trust in the mechanisms and infrastructure of society.

Weasel Advertising

Another pet peeve of mine is at least somewhat relevant to all this – weasel advertising. “Studies have shown that Dried Tomato Tendrills may be effective at fighting brain-sucking leeches from Venus”, or some other medical condition. My automatic assumption on encountering such advertising is to (forcefully) respond, “…but it probably won’t be!”

After all, if they had the real science to back up their claims, they would gleefully cite the paper and would say something like “…is effective in 65% of cases at….” or 75%, or 90%, or whatever. Quote some specific, verifiable numbers and you automatically get my attention.

To my mind, this is all medical Clickbait targeting those who suffer from the conditions cited as being benefited by the substance. And there’s little more capable of inducing anger in me than taking advantage of the unwell (Okay, there are one or two things).

The Cynic Bites Back

That’s probably the ultimate defense against all of these threats; cynicism. If I read something online, or hear something on the TV, or get told something, I automatically reject it (no matter how much it accords with my personal beliefs) until I can get some third-party independent verification. And fourth-party.

It might be that the item cites facts that I have already verified, putting it into the credible-but-unproven category. Over time, patterns build up, lending some sources greater credibility than others. And, of course, some sources have prior reputations that suggestive – though I always remember that all institutions evolve over time. There was, for example, a time when Yahoo was a strongly-trusted news source; but these days, it’s necessary to take every story with a grain of salt and a search for “spin” or commercial relationships.

Equally, some sources establish reputations for being poor with the truth. I wouldn’t trust some people to tell me a line was straight, or how to spell “dog”. That doesn’t preclude them being right every now and then – but it does mean they have to earn that credibility.

Clickbait Recognition

In preparation for this article, I wanted to get a feel for how people treated Clickbait, and in particular, how effectively the recognized it when they saw it.

Clickbait comes in many forms; some is deliberately obtuse, or appeals to emotions, is controversial, or intentionally omits facts and information, or is excessively loud and self-centered, designed to elicit a reaction. Studies have shown that anger and outrage are more effective motivators toward action such as clicking and/or sharing links, so I’m especially wary if either of those responses are elicited.

I’m also aware of the list of “what makes things go viral”, according to the book “Contagious: Why Things Catch On” by Jonah Berger:

• Social Currency – the better something makes people look, the more likely they will be to share it
• Triggers – things that are top of mind are more likely to be tip of tongue
• Emotion – when we care, we share
• Public – the easier something is to see, the more likely people are to imitate it
• Practical Value – people share useful information that seems helpful either to them or to someone they know
• Stories – Trojan Horse stories carry messages and ideas along for the ride

To this well-recognized list, I add four more:

• Shock – if something seems unexpected or surprising, it is more likely to be shared;
• Outrage – if something seems outrageous, we are more likely to share our indignation (with link to justify it)
• Agreement – if we agree with a sentiment or reaction, we are more likely to perpetuate that sentiment or reaction by sharing it.
• Niche Targeting – if something appears relevant to a niche interest that the reader shares, it is adjudged to be potentially interesting to the readers contacts, and hence is more likely to be shared.

To examine the question, I performed a completely unscientific survey over Friday and Saturday. No-one admitted to not knowing what Clickbait was, or to always clicking on it when they encountered it and recognized it for what it was. Responses were equally divided between those who claim to never knowingly click on Clickbait, and those who can sometimes be enticed to click, even knowing what it was.

And that’s the power of Clickbait – it makes us contemplate clicking even when we know better.

Adventure Titles Should Be Like Clickbait

Which brings me to that silver lining. Back when I was working on my original “A Good Name Is Hard To Find” series, aside from some very general advice –

Double or even triple meanings, exaggerations, heightened drama, metaphors and use of nouns, taking synopsis phrases out of context, and so on, are all valid tools to be used.

– the best I could do was offer technique demonstration by extension – giving the names of adventures from my campaigns, how they related to the adventure content, and the occasional bit of relevant commentary.

I was clearer when it came to describing the advantages offered by a good adventure title –

Used correctly, they can put players into the correct frame of mind to react in the right way to the events in a scenario, conceal the identity of a villain until or hide a plot twist until the big reveal, heighten the drama of a situation and/or raise the expectations of the players. At the very least, they provide a referent ‘index’ to the events that occur in the course of the adventure. They can also add to the flavor of the campaign, reinforcing genre elements.

Yes, this is definitely metagaming – nothing wrong with that. It’s using the players to get to the PCs.

I was able to offer some more constructive advice on naming styles in Part 2 of the series on Adventure names (which is why I’ve linked to it). But I’ve never been 100% satisfied with the advice that I was able to offer on the subject, given the importance that I attach to it.

And that brings me back to Clickbait.

When you’re delivering an adventure title to your players, you are employing Niche Targeting. That makes them more likely to “buy in” to the adventure; it helps get them into the right head-space. Every other Clickbait trick is available to you in order to selectively target a particular frame of mind or response. Decide how you want the adventure title to color perceptions of the adventure and shape the thinking of the players, and you’re half-way to deciding what the title should be.

In particular, and in addition to all the advice and technique described above, I have three specific pieces of advice to offer.

Method 1: The Tease

Method 1 is to tease the players with adventure content. Each session’s play should overtly bring that tease closer to fulfillment without actually quite getting there until the crescendo of the adventure, and even then it might not be quite the big deal that you made it look; you can use the tease to play into player expectations and then throw in a plot twist that completely blindsides them. Again, it’s all about the state of mind that you want to achieve.

Method 2: The Strip-show

Method 2 I call the strip-show. Instead of teasing the players with promises of adventure content, you tease them to arouse their character’s prurient interests in some fashion. Let’s say that you have an arch-villain, Count Zalnych, who’s been a thorn in the players sides on more than one occasion. An adventure title like “The undoing of Count Zalnych” would be of obvious interest! It’s just as important to actually and positively deliver on the promises made by your title, but – as usual – double meanings, metaphors, and the like can all make the promise something other than it appears to be at face value.

Above and beyond that, this method can harness the power of innuendo, rumor, and misleading claim.

Method 3: Engaging The Cynic

Method 3 acts in complete opposition to the other two. Your title alleges something shocking or anger-rousing, but then subverts the promise of that content with a question mark. To continue the example given above, “The Ultimate Victory Of Count Zalnych?” as much as dares the players (and hence the PCs) to ensure that the adventure doesn’t deliver.

Studying Clickbait links, whenever you find them, and working out how they are supposed to motivate you to act, helps you learn to create good titles.

And it doesn’t matter if the players recognize that your adventure title is baiting them and refuse to take that bait; simply be engaging with the title enough to recognize it as Clickbait, they buy into it enough to be that little bit more receptive to your adventure content.

Side-benefits

And, of course, you will also learn to better recognize Clickbait and the ways that it can be used to manipulate you – a couple of pronounced side-benefits. The expansion of the Clickbait repertoire to include phishing techniques is a further refinement to this. The skill only has to save you from one Nigerian Prince to amply repay the effort involved!

A limited window – I hope

It must be said that, with any luck, you will only have a limited time to master these techniques. The window is already closing.

Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have already tweaked their operations to constrict Clickbait and false advertising. Fact-checking sites, which were on the way out, have suddenly made a big comeback. Lawsuits appear to be on the increase, and the plaintiffs are winning. Australia has Media Watch, and if you don’t have something similar already, now is as good a time as any to agitate for a local equivalent. Users of social media are slowly becoming more aware of Clickbait and more discerning about the choice to engage it. All this should mean that Clickbait is on the decline. It is increasingly hard to study something that can no longer be found. So take advantage of the opportunity while you can – and then you will be better-equipped to join the fight against the more seditious variants And that can benefit all of us!

“Haunted Castle” Image by pixabay.com / tombud

How do you design your dungeons? For me, the only technique worth contemplating is the Narrative Approach, in which the dungeon’s location and structure derive from the adventure in which they are to be found, and the encounter content and similar details derive from the location, structure, and adventure.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? But, as is often the case, there can be a gulf of light-years between theory and practice, and the devil is always in the detail.

And that’s where this article enters the picture. While it won’t be possible, for reasons of space and time, to do a complete dungeon as an example of the way I approach the situation, especially since I intend to divert from time to time to examine specific issues more comprehensively, I want to at least provide an overview of the process and some guidance relating to specific issues.

The approach to be described is the one that I used to create the room descriptions and content for Assassin’s Amulet (in which the “narrative” was the day-to-day operation of the Assassin’s Guild at the center of the adventure content), so it can be considered proven.

For the purposes of this article, I’m also going to assume that you are one of those people who can’t create your own dungeon maps, or who aren’t satisfied by your abilities in that line.

Adventure Title

Quite often, I don’t decide on what the title is going to be until I’m a long way into the design process, and I’ll usually list 3-4 alternatives using free association and then select between them. But in this particular case, I had the tagline (given below) right away and an obvious title came to mind immediately thereafter:

“The Necropolis That Time Forgot”.

The Adventure Tagline

The tagline came to me within moments of initially contemplating this subject as the basis of an article. Sometimes it takes me a lot longer.

The remote community of Thisselwyne, known throughout the Kingdom as “The Capital Of Tombstones”, has a problem: the dead won’t stay that way…

I had rather more difficulty coming up with a good name for the village. I knew that I wanted it to have a backwoods quality and an English tone, and to have a particular rhythmic pattern – two quick syllables and a third syllable equal to the sum of the first two in normal pronunciation. This pattern emphasizes that last syllable as though it were a crack of doom or peal of thunder, generating a sense of foreboding that doesn’t exist for any other reason.

I generated one name that fit this pattern, and then kept changing it every time I read it over until I was satisfied that it fit the parameters and didn’t carry any unwanted implications (the penultimate version was “Thisselwyche”, but that would have my players asking about ‘The Witch’ for which the town was named – since there is none, that would only muddy the waters of the background).

It’s a name that literally sounds more important, more portentous, than it is.

Adventure Background

This came to me in bits and pieces, mostly from the end-points backwards.

Let me explain that, because it’s important to the process. I started with a general idea of the adventure narrative – which I haven’t shared with you yet, beyond the tagline given above – and worked backwards from the content to the initial situation and context which would be presented to players.

Then I worked forwards again, adding in other implications of that in-game starting point, fleshing out the basic ideas.

I then repeated the process, this time working from the situations as the players find them to what caused them to be, reasoning from effect to cause to effect to cause, to generate a historical background that was consistent with (a) the true situation, as the PCs would discover it to be, (b) the initial situation, as the players would perceive it, and (c) a historical foundation that justifies and explains both (a) and (b).

It sounds complicated, but it’s not. It is, however, tedious and repetitive, and so wouldn’t make good reading.

Thisselwyne is a small township at the foot of Mount Thisselwyne, location of Thisselwyne Castle. In fact, the Estate lays claim to the entire Mountain, and a substantial region around it. Mount Thisselwyne is an isolated peak near the Grayspire Mountains, from which flow the Gislack and Wardner Rivers, who merge just below Thisselwyne..

824 years ago, the Royal Estate was traded for a much smaller landholding on a major trade route, and so for the first time in its history, the Estate gained its own Nobleman: Count [to-be-decided] became Lord and Owner.

Count [to-be-decided] needs a name. But this is an important personage in the background and directly relevant to the adventure that is to unfold, so this is an important name to get right. The problem is that I haven’t yet got the character requirements completely clear in my mind, so I can’t settle on a name because I don’t know what baggage and implications I need the name to carry.

I have some clues: the Count is to be slightly studious, strongly virtuous, and friendly in demeanor. He is to be forward-thinking and optimistic in outlook.

And, while I’m here, a quick profile sketch for the town and its’ environs:

Note that I have literally spent only about 10-15 minutes generating this diagram of the town layout!

Anyway, back to the background:

The existing manor house was expanded by the Count into a reasonable Castle, with a commanding view of the area. From the town-side, it was protected by a 120m cliff-face; on the other three sides, a wall. The castle not only occupied a clearly strategic position, it functioned as a buffer and protection from the monsters that emerged from the wilds of the Grayspire Mountains from time to time.

The Count saw great potential in his new Estates and spent a fortune bringing in the best architects and designers to prepare for future growth of the small community. And, to be fair to him, Thisselwyne held great promise; the lands were sandy and semi-arid but reasonably well-irrigated, and better soil lay a foot or so beneath the surface. The dominant crop of the region was Thessel, a sort of sturdy second-rate barley that thrived on relatively low rainfall and could be used for a bread-like cake, or for fodder. Silver had been found in the Grayspire Mountains, as had granite. And all this was to funnel through the community of Thisselwyne. Expecting it to boom in importance and population was only reasonable.

It was a bright future that was never to be realized. The greater silver deposits were more accessible from the far side of the Mountains, and never reached the town. The granite proved to be flawed, suitable only for smaller blocks and tombstones. The advent of improved agricultural practices and better irrigation made wheat a more practical and popular crop, and Thessel fell out of favor. As a result, the township has experienced only modest growth in the ensuing centuries, and now is home to some 1600 citizens.

Count [to-be-determined] waited, year after year, full of optimism for a future that never came. He died, childless, 35 years after he arrived, and the Estate returned to the Throne.

There’s more, but it’s better dealt with as information that the players gather when they arrive.

The Castle Today

The Castle itself consists of four parts, each containing a number of connected buildings and chambers. To the West, facing the mountains, is the home of the Grayspire Abbottry, an order of cloistered Monks and their Abbot, who survive by virtue of a small vegetable patch, some donations from the town, and by maintaining the rest of the inhabited parts of the castle, who they also feed. The Northern Face of the Castle contains a small Inn dedicated to providing lodgings for those for whom a spell of Fresh Mountain Air is medically prescribed, and some rooms kept for the Monarch, should he ever bother to visit (he never has). In the center of the castle is a courtyard. On the opposite side of this open cobbled area are the quarters of the Order of Grayspire, a small and decrepit Order of Paladins, all that remains of the Castle’s traditional Defenders. The Southern part of the castle lies in ruins, though some parts are more whole than others, notably the tower of the foot-notable Wizard Homankle, a live-in guest of Count [to-be-determined] when the Castle was constructed.

Homankle was a student of great promise, who attracted the patronage of the Count. Like the town, though, it was a promise never-fulfilled; with the death of his patron, he fades into obscurity in terms of historical significance. A figure of great mystery, no-one ever saw his face after his graduation from the Arcane tutelage of the Archmage Wyndamere.

To construct a map of this structure, I would cut and paste from other maps, looking in particular for maps of a castle with an appropriate courtyard. I would use a map of a ruined Wizard’s Tower for the Tower of Homankle, and a mirror-image copy of that map for the matching tower in the Southwestern corner, most of which is now missing or collapsed.

As part of his planning, Count [to-be-determined] wanted to ensure that the castle was the focal point of the town as it grew; he foresaw the day when the township surrounded the entirety of Mount Thisselwyne. The grounds of the mountain were dedicated to the town cemetery, and a Necropolis of crypts and vaults constructed beneath the Castle. For a few hundred years after his death, the castle occupants maintained these in good order and security, but as the Abbottry and Paladin Order fell into disrepute, they became neglected and ignored, and one-by-one, various monsters and horrors discovered the new safe haven to be to their liking. So long as they leave the castle occupants and the township alone, they are ignored; periodically one will overstep the mark, and a mob will be formed by the town’s Official Adventurers with torches and pitchforks and make a superficial attempt to cleanse the Necropolis.

The Official Adventurers

The last decree by Count [to-be-determined] was the establishment of the town’s Official Adventurers, seven individuals who would be responsible for the protection of the town. In return for accepting the town’s invitation to reside in the area and perform public service on behalf of the citizens, they were to receive not only a partial repayment of their own taxes and tithes from the township’s taxes, but were also to receive a small percentage of those taxes directly. Like the other institutions established in that era, this has fallen into disrepair in the centuries since, and these roles are now merely titles bestowed by the town council upon themselves for the payments and perqs.

Currently, the Official Cleric is the Abbott from the Castle, and the Official Paladin is the head of the Order of Grayspire. The Official Rogue is the Master of the Town Market (and the most prominent merchant in the town). The Official Warrior is the head of the Stonecutter’s Guild, and the Official Ranger is the Master Of The Docks who ship the blank tombstones created by the Guild to customers downriver. The Official Wizard is the owner of the town Tavern, Bakery, and Brewery, and the Official Bard is the Secretary of the Council. When one of their number passes away, the Council selects another prominent towns-person of “approved character and mind” to replace them, bestowing the now-vacant title (and the benefits thereof) upon the lucky recipient.

Names and personalities to be determined at a later time. Suffice it to say that these are conservative, greedy, and old, and entirely inadequate to the current crisis.

It won’t take the PCs long to discover that something in the local environment seems to be keeping the citizens healthy and longer-lived than is normal – they arrive as the locals are celebrating the 160th birthday of the tavern-keeper and Official Wizard. Interrogating the locals produces only shrugs until they ask the Abbot, who is aware of the pattern (and 187 years old, himself); starting about 520 years ago, lifespans began to extend and the number of citizens requiring interment in the cemetery or necropolis began to decline. He puts it down to a steady diet of boiled Thessel, greens, and a teaspoon of Absinthe in every meal.

The State Of Emergency

The Necropolis has always had a minor problem with Undead, but lately it has grown much worse. What’s more, those interred in the castle grounds (i.e. the official town cemetery) are also rising. Keeping the bodies in state within the town boundaries has also failed, as has burying them elsewhere. The town Guard, maintained at Royal Expense and supposedly present primarily to ensure that the King’s Taxes are paid on time and in full, are also incapable of dealing with the situation.

And so, they have appealed to the Throne, and the Throne has posted a reward, and has selected the party as the winners of the lucky door prize, the first to be granted the opportunity to claim the reward and earn continuing Royal goodwill (as opposed to attracting Royal Ire)…

The Adventure Narrative

The starting point for all the above is the Adventure Narrative. The background establishes the history of the dungeon and its nature, and why dealing with it has suddenly become a critical priority. It also details the local support available to assist the PCs – not much, as it happens.

In part 1 of the adventure, the PCs are directed to attend the presence of a Royal Envoy, who commissions them on the Throne’s behalf (not giving them much choice) to investigate the situation. They are able to learn the basic background and then travel to the town, where they learn the rest of the background by interacting with the locals. They can also choose whether to make their base of operations in the Town or at the Castle and set themselves up.

In part 2, they can formulate theories as to what’s happening and investigate the above-ground ruins, discovering that the late Wizard was a Necromancer and that Count [to-be-determined] and the Wizard are actually one and the same person. They will also learn that there is a hidden sub-level beneath the crypts of the Necropolis where the Necromancer had his workshop. This establishes an apparent contradiction in the character of the Count – is he dark and evil (Necromancer, plus recent developments) or the benevolent, kindly, and wise ruler of local legend?

In part 3, the PCs travel through the Necropolis (now full of Undead who won’t stay dead, even when destroyed by Turning, and other monsters) to the hidden entrance to the Necromancer’s Laboratory. Exploring the Laboratory (more monsters), they learn that he was a keen planar explorer, and fascinated by the differences in life and death amongst the inhabitants native to the different Planes. They also discover plans for the future growth of Thisselwyne, trade analyses and forecasts that by this point in time, it would be a small city of between 40 and 60,000 inhabitants, and the Necropolis and associated common cemetery would contain about 250,000 dead awaiting reanimation by means of something called the Crystal of Life. There are also suggestions that should this not come to pass, the effect of the Crystal would continue to grow, perpetually reanimating the dead of neighboring regions until its capacity was achieved. The problems they are now dealing with are just the tip of the iceberg…

In part 4, the PCs discover the inner lair of the Necromancer, where he waits to be the last corpse reanimated by the Crystal Of Life. But there’s a problem: the Crystal is damaged. They find records describing what the Crystal is supposed to do (reanimate 249,999 subordinates and the Necromancer himself), perpetually regenerate those Undead, and place those subordinates under the command of the Necromancer while leaving them immune to the control of N’Valesh (whoever that is). The PCs are healed by the Crystal, from which it is possible to determine that Life Energy is leaking from the Crystal, probably from a crack that resulted from a minor cave-in 500-odd years ago. That means that it will never achieve full capacity, and never revive the Necromancer, and probably only provides limited protection from this N’Valesh. That could be a good thing or a bad thing, and the only way to find out is to interrogate the Necromancer – fortunately, there is a Speak With Dead spell on a scroll beside him, an insurance policy.

The Necromancer, due to his nature, is somewhat more independent and loquacious than most shades. He is under the mistaken impression that the PCs are part of the Official Adventurers of the Township, an organization that he created as a fail-safe against just this sort of development. He tells them that N’Valesh is a power-hungry half-Devil half- Mind Flayer hybrid Necromancer who specializes in the Undead of the Elemental Planes – Reanimated Djinns and Elementals and the like – who he encountered in his planar travels. Although initially friendly, N’Valesh soon revealed his true nature, and attempted to imprison Homankle —

I am less enthused with that name every time I use it. Originally chosen because it’s very meh and so suits the perception of a Wizard who was only considered “foot-noteworthy”, I now feel that the name undermines the seriousness of the message being delivered. I want something that is more sinister and powerful, but which can also be viewed as positive. I would, if I were creating this dungeon for real, continue using it for now, with a note to do a global search-and-replace later, after selecting a more appropriate name.

— but the Wizard was able to turn the tables and confine the Half-demon. But he always feared that N’Valesh would escape, or be freed, and would one day threaten the Prime Material Plane. Homankle spent the rest of his life planning to counter that threat, choosing an out-of-the-way location that was primed for explosive growth and could be shaped, culturally, to his needs; creating the Crystal Of Life; Recruiting the Order of Grayspire and the Abbottry to protect the town’s living population while his Undead army waged war against the Undead of the enemy. He had not counted on the decay of tradition and corruption of the institutions that he had set in place. Thus, he has no choice but to place the responsibility for dealing with the situation in the hands of the PCs. Whosoever holds the Crystal Of Life possesses the keys to command the Undead Army he has created – an unstoppable force to defeat an unstoppable enemy who can track the Crystal Of Life and wants to posses it for himself.

In other words, the Town of Thisselwyne – and, in particular, the Castle – are ground zero for the invasion AND the command center for ‘the allies’ in countering the invasion.

In Part 5, the PCs have to take the tools made available to them, decide whether or not to employ them (and what to do with them), and deal with the invasion of Undead Elementals.

These confrontations were my original vision for the adventure, and everything else has been created to facilitate them. I drew a lot of inspiration for the battles between the T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and T-1000 (Robert Patrick) in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Dungeon Design

Assuming that you aren’t custom-making a dungeon, but are instead drawing upon someone else’s design such as those available from Dungeon-A-Day, the first step is to pin down exactly what your requirements are. In this case, a focal point, an adjacent complex (library, workshop, bedroom, etc, for the Wizard), and several tiers of structure radiating outwards from this focal point. Each tier is to contain a more elite form of Undead soldier. In succession:

• Disorganized individuals
• Individuals with weaponry in which they are practicing
• Groups with weaponry in which they are practicing in coordinated fashion
• Units patrolling and drilling, weapons at the ready, proficient and skilled in the usage
• Honor Guard in the inner chamber.

While I envisage the base monster to be a typical skeleton, I would expect to depart from that foundation further and further with each tier. And, because these are subject to the Crystal Of Life, each tier will be more inclined to ignore the PCs unless attacked.

In essence, that’s a complex with five areas, each of which consists of multiple matching rooms. Something like the layout below would work:

Once again, I spent very little time working on this. You have each tier arranged in a ring with the throne room and Crystal Of Life in the central zone and a complex in a missing “segment” of the complex. Corridors wrap around each of the areas. The “entrance” is at the bottom of the map.

The general principle is this: break the plot down into the distinctive plot needs, then assign one to each successive section or area of the map. It can be a single room or a complex of rooms. If it’s multiple rooms, it’s likely that only one of them will need to serve the story needs.

Encounters

The story needs then have to be assessed in terms of mandatory or associated encounters, and encounter interactions. For example, if a creature takes up residence next to something else that thinks of the creature as lunch, pretty soon there will be no creature – or no hungry something. Either way, it clears the way for something else to occupy one of the spaces, but probably doesn’t erase all signs of the prior habitation.

Once you know what encounters are present because they are necessary to the plot, you can fill in the rest with whatever seems appropriate. Don’t forget the possibility of a room designated “no man’s land” between two factions that are each too difficult for the other to dispatch.

This is also a good time to contemplate the dungeon ecosystem. What do the inhabitants eat when they can’t get Adventurer?

I always like to be able to answer three questions about each area’s inhabitants: Why did they choose this location, how are they going to change it by interacting with it, and how did they get there?

Other Mandatory Content

Traps and treasure placements are allocated in the same way.

Architectural Style

Another ingredient needed before I can start writing up descriptions of each area is to decide, based on who created the place, on an architectural style on which to base the descriptions, on the presumption that there would be both a consistency and a number of trends to take into account – greater skill and expertise after they’ve been building the place for a while, less damage in some areas and more in others, and so on.

Imbued Dynamism

Right now, everything’s probably pretty static. Encounters wait patiently in each room to be disturbed by marauding adventurers.

That won’t do, not at all. So now is the time to change it, building in patterns of behavior based on the location and the neighbors. In particular, if there are any areas of natural illumination, they will become the timekeepers of the dungeon, synchronizing their activities with the patterns of light. Their neighbors will soon learn to tell time by the activities of the timekeepers, if only because they want to avoid them when they go a-wandering.

To Recap:

The plot should define the nature and functionality, in plot terms, of the dungeon. Basing the concepts and background on these definitions provides consistency. Breaking the dungeon elements of the plot down into individual pieces of narrative begins the process of populating the dungeon with encounters, loot, and complications, and ensures that these serve the plot purpose of the dungeon. Inherent logic is woven directly into the fabric of the location.

The result is that everything present is there for a reason and serves a purpose. And that actually makes creating the dungeon easier. Talk about your win-win!

This evocative image is by Pixabay.com / thommas68

Being invited recently to participate in play-testing for Pathfinder 2.0 (or whatever they are calling it) – an invitation that I had to, regretfully, decline – has, nevertheless, fired my imagination.

I keep returning to the question,

“If I were one of the authors tasked with updating the game system, what would I do?”

Surprisingly, clear answers immediately came to mind.

Some of these ideas I’ve written about in the past. Where that’s the case, I’ll point readers at the appropriate article. Others are new subjects of discussion.

Because I rather suspect that few, if any, of these ideas will be incorporated into the official rules when Pathfinder 2.0 achieves its finalized form, they will be presented as House Rules that readers can choose to incorporate, or not, themselves.

Space is going to preclude going into too much depth regarding any of these subjects. If there’s demand for it, I might expand on one or two in a separate follow-up article.

Schools Of Magic

First, I would make the schools of magic more meaningful. Every mage would be required to select a “theme” to their magic, to be approved by the GM. Spells from that school are reduced in spell level one slot and become available automatically when the character reaches the requisite character level. Spells outside the school are NOT available automatically and have to be sought out, either on scrolls or from someone who already knows the spell and is willing to teach it.

I would also generate and include a suggested list as a table that players/GMs could simply roll on.

Spell description would be enhanced with additional flavor text to use in visualizing magic school / spell combinations.

Each mage would also be required to choose an “opposing theme” for magics that are reduced in effectiveness. “Reduced” how? well, the simplest way would be to increase the spell level of such spells by 1. But it’s not the only choice that I would offer.

Reducing Metamagics

I described these in Broadening Magical Horizons. These are a sub-class of Metamagic Feats that I introduced in one of my campaigns, to great effect. Unlike normal metamagics, which enhance a spell in exchange for placing the in a higher spell slot, these reduce both effectiveness and spell slot. They can be used to counterbalance or mitigate a normal metamagic enhancement, or can be applied to reduce the spell slot.

Every mage would be required to choose one reducing metamagic that they gain as a free feat.

For various “staple” spells that are likely to be included in one or more schools, I would also write up stat blocks for “reduced versions” that become available at lower character levels provided (1) you have chosen an appropriate school; and (2) you have the appropriate Reducing Metamagic Feat.

Thus a fire-school mage would be able to cast a regular Fireball spell as a 2nd level spell instead of the normal 3rd level slot, would get a reduced version available as a 1st level spell, and a greatly reduced version as a 0th-level spell. The latter might be nothing more than the equivalent of striking a match – 1 point of damage if you stick your finger in the flame and keep it there – but it would be a perfectly reasonable Orison.

Spontaneous Metamagics

I would create new magic items that automatically add a level of metamagic feat (reducing or enhancing) to selected spells when in the mage’s possession during casting.

I would then incorporate explicit rules for mages to be able to decide on metamagic enhancements to their spells “on the fly” as opposed to pre-loading the versions memorized with the Feat. However, this is an option only available if you have a magic school that matches the spell. So Fire Mages could do it with Fireball and Flaming Hands and Wall Of Flame and the like.

The intent is to (1) increase the flexibility and precision with which mages of a particular school can cast spells from that school; (2) create magic items explicitly useful by particular schools of magic; and (3) clarify an area of rules that needs a little cleaning up..

Slowed Mage Power Progression

If you were to ask almost any D&D/Pathfinder GM what the biggest problems are with earlier editions of the game, they would probably talk about “game balance” or “level imbalance”.

Simply put, mages are too weak at low levels and too powerful at high levels, relative to other classes, and the other classes also suffer from similar inequalities of a lesser degree. The problem was most acute with AD&D, but has been present through every generation of rules up to 3.x/Pathfinder; 4th ed D&D attempted (again) to fix the problem, with (I understand) limited success, 5th ed D&D actually does fix it – at the expense of some (a lot?) of the unique class flavor. Not having played 4th ed or the final incarnation of 5th ed, I can’t speak to that definitively; those are just my impressions.

Well, Pathfinder 2.0 will need to fix this problem too, but do so in a distinctly different way to the approach of WOTC, and preferably one that doesn’t have that flavor price-tag attached.

Instead of spells gaining 1d6 or whatever with each character level, they would gain one step on a fixed “effectiveness chart”. This would read something like “+1, +d3, +d6” at higher levels, “+d3, +d6” at mid-levels, and only for the first 3 or 4 levels would the existing power progression apply.

So, fireballs might run “3d6; 4d6, 5d6, 6d6, 6d6+d3, 7d6, 7d6+d3, 8d6, 8d6+d3, 9d6, 9d6+d3, 10d6, 10d6+1, 10d6+d3, 11d6, 11d6+1, 11d6+d3, 12d6,” and so on.

On top of that, 1d6 of the effect is always to be designated “critical effect”. Casting a spell is to require a combat roll of some type, probably using INT in place of STR, and that 1d6 only happens on a critical hit. So “12d6” is really “11d6 +1d6 critical”.

This slows the progression of power levels of mages. The exact specifics can be fine-tuned to correct the upper-level power problem, while the effects of the magic schools rules goes a long way to solving the lower-level problem. Not all the way, but I’ll get to that a little later.

Clerical Revision

There would need to be similar revisions made to clerical spells and spellcasting. In particular, I would devise some clerical-only Metamagics that would emphasize the difference between divine magic and arcane magic.

All Clerical magic should come in three optional flavors (with Metamagics as the means of implementing the flavors in game mechanics): single target, multiple target, and area effect. Each of these should be a step down in terms of power effect, but a significant increase in effectiveness relative to what a mage could manage even if they could apply their metamagics to a clerical spell. Another Clerical Magic, one that’s at least one step further removed from area effect, would be Permanent, and there might well be an intermediate “semi-permanent” version.

These Clerical Metamagic impacts would increase with character level. A 20th-level Cleric should be capable of Blessing (for the normal duration of the spell) an entire region, or Permanently Blessing a building.

The current description of each clerical spell becomes the “base level” upon which these variations are created. If the “base level” describes an Area Effect, then the multiple-target version is more powerful than the existing spell, and the “Single Target” version more powerful again. If the “base level” is single target, then the multiple-target spell is weaker, and the area effect weaker again.

One set of changes that I would definitely focus on is “Holy Drip Bottle” syndrome. I posited a solution to this in the last two parts of my “All Wounds Are Not Alike” series (Narcotic Healing part 1 and part 2), but I think that might be a step too far for general use. Though I would definitely include it as an optional rule!

No, my preferred solution for general consumption is a little more far-reaching – and yet, ironically, the results would look and feel a lot more like traditional Pathfinder.

Changed HP subsystem

HP would get broken into two strands: Critical Capacity and Wound Capacity. The exact means of division requires a little more thought; the notion is that most of the existing HP would go into Wound Capacity, while Critical Capacity would be 1st-level HP plus 1 for each subsequent character level, or something along those lines. I might require every third lot of bonus HP from CON to be applied to Critical Capacity instead of Wound Capacity, or I might apply the bonus both ways at such levels – that would need to be play-tested.

An ordinary hit can only impact Wound Capacity until that is all gone. Any “unused” damage inflicted is lost. Only when a character has no remaining Wound Capacity can ordinary damage be applied to Critical Capacity. Total loss of Wound Capacity requires the character to save vs CON or lose consciousness. Any Critical Damage that has been inflicted increases the DC of this save.

But wait – didn’t I just say that you don’t lose Critical Capacity until you’ve used up all your Wound Capacity? Well, that’s not entirely true. All attacks have two components: critical damage and ordinary damage. Critical Damage is only inflicted on a Critical Hit, applies directly to Critical Capacity, and is otherwise ignored. Run out of Critical Capacity and you have to start making FORT saves to avoid starting a countdown to Death.

That countdown is punctuated at various points by key events – immobility/collapse, unconsciousness, coma, and (of course) death. The count between these events is 6+CON Bonus. The lower your CON, the more quickly you die. If you reach one of these landmark status points, that is your condition even if you are healed by Potion or Cleric. It requires a separate healing effect to remove the condition (or the passage of time). (The Immobility stage is designed to give characters one last chance to chug a healing potion).

This makes characters and creatures slightly slower to kill, overall, but more sudden and impactful when it does happen, and a lot harder to heal, and enables differentiation of the different healing spells according to the way they handle Critical Damage. Cure Light Wounds heals NO Critical Damage. Cure Moderate Wounds heals 1 Critical Damage per die of healing – subtracted from the total – with the balance being applied to Wound Capacity, and so on.

Which brings me back to magical attacks like Fireball. 1/3 of the dice of damage these do (round down) must be reserved as Critical Damage, that is only inflicted on a Critical Hit.

To score a Critical Hit, you have to roll a natural 20 on your attack roll, AND your attack total must be 20 more than the target’s AC. That makes them a lot harder to score if you are significantly lower-level than the target you are attacking, and reduces slightly their probability the rest of the time.

Backstab Revision

One of the major purposes of this combat change is to facilitate a major revision to the Backstab rules. The problem is that backstabs are (currently) either too lethal or not lethal enough, either inadequate or total overkill.

Breaking “Hit Points” into the two damage types permits a more controlled mechanism for Backstab attacks. Such attacks can do normal damage, plus a backstab critical component based on character level if the attack total is 10 more than the target’s AC. This is likely to be instantly deadly to anyone more than a couple of character levels lower than the Thief/Rogue, and a critical injury demanding immediate attention to anyone not several character levels higher. On a critical hit, the weapon’s ordinary damage is also applied to the Critical Capacity of the target, making this an effective but not instantly-lethal attack against targets roughly 50% higher in levels than the Backstabber.

Balancing this is the need to achieve an attack total ten higher than the target’s AC. This is easy to achieve against unarmored low-level opponents and becomes progressively less so as those two statements become invalid. Characters in heavy armor make extremely difficult backstab targets even at relatively low levels. This brings a dash of realism to the mechanism without compromising the fantasy element inherent in the genre. The result would be at home in both high and low-fantasy campaigns.

Paladin Changes

I’ve thought a lot about changes to, and variations on, the standard Paladin. That was to be the subject of the still-unfinished sequel to Assassin’s Amulet, after all. I still want to finish and publish that, one of these days, so I don’t want to steal my own thunder – besides, I can’t squeeze 60-odd pages of notes into one section of this article in any practical way!

Nevertheless, some of the mooted changes would be priority inclusions. In that unfinished work, I posit that the key to understanding the comparative differences between Clerics and Paladins is that each was designed (as an organization/community) to oppose different enemies. I then proposed three variations for GMs to choose between: (1) Clerics were designed to deal with rogue/dark gods on behalf of the good/light gods; (2) Clerics were designed to deal with the plots of Devils; or (3) Clerics were designed to deal with the Chaos and Misery inflicted by Demons.

In case (3), [standard] Paladins were created to oppose Devils, and needed to be organized and systematic to cope with the plots of these enemies; In case (2), [standard] Paladins were created to oppose Demons, and their order and system are specifically intended to be weapons and armor against the anarchy that Demons can inflict; and, in case (3), Paladins are the primary opposition to both groups. I then went on to tweak those Standard designs into specific forms designed to be effective against one of the two enemies.

This involved altering a number of the special abilities of the class, often in such a way that the existing effects could be retained as a special effect when the ability was applied to a normal person – the primary purpose of Laying On Hands was not to heal, it was to Exorcise, and so on. I also customized the spell lists extensively, and reduced the combat capabilities of the class (so that they were clearly less combat-effective than Fighters) but replaced those benefits with additional enemy-specific capabilities.

All of those changes, and the concepts in back of them, would be brought into Paladins if I were rewriting the Pathfinder rules.

Revised Skill DC subsystem

I showed in “How Hard Can It Be?” – Skill Checks Under The Microscope that the whole 3.x/Pathfinder DC scale is out of whack. A 14th-level character can succeed on a DC 40 check 50% or more of the time, given only slightly favorable circumstances. I solved this by applying a corrective calculation, New = 10 + 1.2 x (Old – 10).

EG:

• Old DC 0: 0-10=-10; x1.2 = -12; +10 = -2.
• Old DC 10: 10-10=0; x1.2 = 0; +10 = 10 (no change).
• Old DC 20: 20-10=10; x1.2 = 12; +10 = 22.
• Old DC 30: 30-10=20; x1.2 = 24; +10 = 34.
• Old DC 40: 40-10=30; x1.2 = 36; +10 = 46.

In

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast, I revisited the issue, looking at the standard of expertise that should be used as the basis for determining what the DC should be for any specific task.

Most recently, in The Black Meta-Art Of Setting Difficulty Targets, I analyzed the effect of compounded modifiers and got some very surprising (and revealing results) – if you have N modifiers of average range ±1-to-M, most of the time, the net effect will be of a single modifier in the ±1-to-4/3×M range, with a small but increasing error at higher N values that isn’t worth compensating for.

Were I one of the creative team working on Pathfinder 2.0, I would use these latter 2 articles to determine what the DC should be of the example tasks listed in the Core Rulebook (0-35 scale), then apply the corrective factor determined in the first article and quoted above, or add new entries for DC 40/45/50/55/60.

Revised XP System

This is another subject that I have written about, sparking quite a bit of controversy when I analyzed the vagaries of the existing XP system. But, if I were rewriting the system, I would ditch the whole existing structure and model its replacement on a series of articles published here at Campaign Mastery:

• Experience for the ordinary person;
• Objective-Oriented Experience Points; and
• The Past Revisited: The XP-less NPC.

Magic Items and Magic Places

I would throw in a lot of new magic items, over and above those listed earlier. Magic items which conferred ranks in skills. Some of the magic items listed in The Bottom End Of The Magic Biz.

The entire contents of Let’s Talk About Containers: 22 Wondrous Items.

The ideas in Creating New Magic Weapons.

The content from all 7 parts of the Spell Storage Solutions series – “If I Could Save Magic In A Bottle,” “A Heart Of Shiny Magic”, “Just Another Pointy Stick”, “Not Just Another Pointy Stick”, “The Energizer Bunny”, “The Ultimate Weapon”, and The Crown Of Insight from “Let’s Make A Relic”.

Some content from “How Long Should Potions Last?” which was part of this Blog Carnival post.

Plus a deeper dive on the Spell Components concept, as suggested in the Some Arcane Assembly Required series.

Some content from Big Is Not Enough: Monuments and Places Of Wonder. And the location ideas presented in Six Wonders: A selected assortment of Wondrous Locations for a fantasy RPG and Five More Wonders: Another assortment of Locations for a fantasy RPG.

Encumbrance

I would take the ideas offered in He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Servomech: User-friendly Encumbrance in RPGs and run with them.

And Lastly

Lastly, of course, I would look at the articles I’ve done on variant races and present them as optional choices for the GM, expanding the palette of choices within the game. Of course, I would include my Ergonomics articles –

Ergonomics and the Non-human about Elves, and By Popular Demand: The Ergonomics Of Dwarves about, well, that’s fairly obvious. And maybe the more recent article, (In)Human Survival: The Biology of Elementals and More, too.

By the time all that was finished, the game would be both radically different and distinct from its original version, and yet still recognizably Pathfinder. Of course, you don’t have to wait. It’s (almost) all waiting for you here already – just click on the links!

And, to the people who actually have the responsibility for drafting the next generation of the rules: Your solutions don’t have to look anything at all like the ones that I’ve proposed, but these are still the areas that I would be looking at. Of course, if you do happen to like one or more of the ideas presented here, contact me – my terms are very reasonable, I promise!

Scorpion (in x-box colors) image from Pixabay.com / DirtyOpi

There’s a TV Series that every GM, regardless of the genre of their games, should be watching. It’s a show that I’ve discussed before, in a completely different context – in The Expert In Everything, and it’s name is Scorpion.

Why?

Simply put, because it contains so many lessons for the GM. To be specific:

Character Evolution

The characters evolve over the course of time in a way that seems quite natural and progressive.

Submerging integrated plotlines

What’s more, while there is the occasional big development thrust into the forefront, most of this development takes place in the background in small scenes. In effect, every character has their own plot arc consisting of numerous small scenes strung together. What’s more, these plotlines play off each other, intertwining regularly; it would be as accurate to describe them as the plot arc of one or more relationships within the group of protagonists as to describe them as plot arcs of a singular character.

Even more usefully, there is often a spillover between these subplots and the main plotlines of the show that makes the whole thing far more seamless than the disjointed impression created by the preceding paragraph.

Pacing

For that matter, there are lots of lessons in the pacing of the series – it regularly goes from sedately-paced to high-octane action and back again in the course of an episode, yet slower scenes and plot arcs punctuate the action seamlessly. It achieves this by substituting dramatic or emotional intensity for pace and duration.

This sounds complicated, but it’s not. But before I can explain it, though, I need to move on to another lesson that the show can teach the GM.

Plot Structure

When you break the show down to it’s plot elements, it’s a relatively straightforward recipe in 4-and-a-bit acts.

In Act 1, the current status of the characters is established and the personal development plot arc(s) that are to take place in the course of the episode are then introduced. A problem or crisis then introduces the main plot. Using their capabilities as building blocks, the team arrives at a solution to the problem almost immediately, and set about implementing that solution. Unexpectedly, there’s a complication or setback that usually invalidates the entire initial solution and/or makes the situation both much more serious and critical.

Act 2 brings a solution to the new problem, but successful implementation won’t fix the main emergency, before presenting a fresh complication / setback.

This pattern is repeated in Act 3. Time, of course, has been passing, and that usually means that a bad situation has been worsening.

Act 4 yields a desperate solution to the problem, which is then implemented. This leads to the Climax Moment, the last instant when everything that can be done, has been done, but the Audience has not yet seen the outcome. Quite often, the producers will tease the audience by showing the team members in a similar state of nervous anticipation before finally resolving the crisis/emergency.

Along the way, at the points where the intensity matches that of the action, the character personal development arc slides in. This might be a thirty-second scene, a conversation against the background of the developing crisis, or simply a line of dialogue between two or more characters while they are implementing the solution to the current immediate problem.

The show normally ends with an epilogue (the “and-a-bit” that I mentioned) which develops or resolves the character plot situation, and which may lead into the next episode’s personal development arc.

All this is illustrated in the breakdown below:

Regular readers will recognize that I’ve been advocating these plot and structural techniques for many years. In fact, structurally, Scorpion comes closer to being an RPG than any other show I’ve seen.

History

This article should really have been written back in 2014. Scorpion was initially the subject of heavy criticism for implausible problems and neglecting simpler solutions than those chosen by the team. I mentioned this in “The Expert On Everything” with the comment that I didn’t think the show was quite as bad as it was being depicted.

Nevertheless, I rarely watched it; the timing was inconvenient and other shows had a higher priority. And, to be honest, I didn’t expect the show to last beyond that initial season, and didn’t want to invest too much of my time and attention into it. As a result, I didn’t get to see it in the light in which this article presents it.

But the network who owns the rights has been repeating earlier seasons as well as airing the current (4th) season in different time-slots, and with the addition of an external hard drive, I’ve had the capacity to record and time-shift these episodes, so I’ve been catching up – fast.

This somewhat hodge-podge non-sequential viewing has had the advantage of making the character development far more obvious than it otherwise would be.

The Sting In The Tail

Unfortunately, the network which produces the series (CBS) has decided not to renew it for a 5th season, according to Wikipedia, based on reports in Entertainment Weekly. So the final cliffhanger with which Season 4 ended will not be resolved. That’s the bad news.

But when the world hands you lemons, the only thing to do is make lemon meringue pie with them. The silver lining is that all four seasons are, or soon will be, available on DVD.

Amazon lists seasons 1-3 as currently available, and is taking pre-release orders for season 4, “the final season”, to be released September 11th in a very poor choice of timing.

Season 1: DVD $12.99 Blu-ray $21.49, 246 reviews, aggregate rating 4.8 out of 5.
Season 2: DVD $14.99, 504 reviews, aggregate rating 4.7 out of 5.
Season 3: DVD $17.45, 241 reviews, aggregate rating 4.5 out of 5.
Season 4 (not yet released) DVD $37.36, not yet rated.
A number of retailers are offering the first three seasons as a set; the prices are comparable to those listed above, but with the convenience of one-click ordering. Ignore the suggestions that this is the complete TV series – until the 4th season is released, in terms of DVD availability right now, it is, but that’s misleading.

Making use of Scorpion

You may have noticed that I’ve said next-to-nothing about the show’s content. There’s a good reason for that.

For most campaigns, the show will be of only indirect value. It’s unlikely that you will find many episodes that you can use to inspire a fantasy adventure, for example; they are too rooted in the modern day, and the problems and challenges encountered are too geared to the team members in the show to be readily translatable to others.

But the indirect value is enormous, and irrelevant of genre. The best way to use the series is to watch it – not as a piece of entertainment (you can do that, too, if you like what you see), but critically, as a demonstration of technique.

Notice how two or more completely separate plotlines relate to each other? Notice how the scenes segue? Notice the timing, and how the writers let the characters decide “what to do,” only to block the easy solution and raise the stakes at the same time? Compare the characters as presented in seasons 2 and 3 with how they were in Season 1, then go back through the episodes and trace the on-screen evolution of the characters. Unlike some shows, it all does happen on the screen in front of you.

If you equate a single episode to a game session or to an adventure, you will find yourself picking up subtle tricks of timing and pacing, of integrating comedy and drama, and – to some extent – of characterization.

Scorpion won’t solve your every problem. It won’t even improve every area of your GMing. But in those aspects in which it is relevant, it really is a masterclass for the GM. Grab it while you can!

Postscript:

I’ve just seen the second-last episode and can add another lesson to the list – what it looks like when you stretch credibility too far… Despite this, I stand by my recommendation. Just thought readers would like to know.

Cast your vote by clicking on this link or the image above!

Just a brief note to advise that voting has opened for the 2018 Ennies. These are the tabletop RPG equivalent of the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes and the Pulitzers – they celebrate excellence within our hobby. There have been over 500 submitted products from 72 publishers in 23 categories, and the judges have narrowed the choices down to just 5 in each category (with a few exceptions). Voting is open for just 10 days, until July 21, 2018 at 11:59 EDT (that’s US time for those living elsewhere!)

You can view the list of nominees at this webpage, which is full of clickable links to enable you to learn more about the different nominees.

Voting takes place here. Just click on a category to view the nominations within that category and cast your vote. Note that clicking on a nominee again takes you to that nominee’s page, it doesn’t vote for them!

You can only vote once. You don’t have to vote in every category.

While I’d love it if you voted for Campaign Mastery, if you honestly think another entrant in the Best Blog category did a better job over the last year, vote for them – they will have earned it!

Best of luck to everyone nominated, and a big cheer of appreciation for the award sponsors.

(Oh, and if you don’t think this is a big deal – since voting opened, 70%-plus of the traffic to Campaign Mastery has come from the voting page. That’s almost 50% more than on all other sources combined!)

The topic of “Why Do You Love RPGs? Why Do You Love GMing?” seems such a simple one, but it’s actually very challenging to articulate why you love something.

It seems to me that this is one problem that’s actually holding the hobby back from broader acceptance – it’s really hard to “sell” someone on participating when you can’t explain why you do so.

And that makes the subject far more important than the fluff that it might initially have seemed to be.

Of course, it’s always possible that people have already written on the subject and can’t think of anything to add. I have certainly answered the second question before, for example.

But for one of these reasons, or (more probably) a combination of both, there were relatively few responses to the Blog Carnival this time around.

• In For The Love Of RPGs, I list no less than seven reasons why I love the hobby and explained that I thought we fall in love with it for one of them but stay in love with it for one of the others.
• Brent Jens, The Renaissance Gamer from The Rat Hole, offered June RPG Blog Carnival in response to the first question, in which he makes some really insightful points on the differences between shared and concurrent experiences.
• Later in the month, he followed up with Why Do I Love GMing in answer to the second question, admitting that at first he didn’t love DMing, but then offering three reasons why he now not only did, but found that love growing stronger. What changed? You’ll have to read his article to find out! Since he didn’t provide a back-link to the article as part of the carnival, this roundup is your first chance to do so.
• Rodney Sloan at Rising Phoenix Games provided Busting Out Of My Shell in which he described how he used RPGs to both escape and reconnect with, the personal reality of his environment and surrounding society. It’s the sort of answer that becomes more personal and profound, the more you muse on it.
• Gonz at Codex Anathema stepped up to the plate with 13 Reasons Why which is all about why he loves Eberron as a game setting, but which also speaks to the broader question, albeit indirectly.
• When he discovered the topic of the blog carnival this month, Gonz followed up by offering Why Do I Love You? with two points. His second is the capacity for forming relationships over the gaming table, but his first discusses the far more existential proposal that he loves the hobby because of what that love reflects about who we are as people when we are at our best. It’s short but deeply meaningful, and the perfect way to round out this collection of perspectives.

There are a lot of reasons to love RPGs. There may not have been many submissions, but between them, I think we’ve covered just about everything. And that makes this month’s blog entry the place to point people who look at you quizzically when you tell them what you do with your time – and why there’s no reason to be embarrassed about it (though some people are).

I could add something more, but this post is all about the other articles to which I’ve linked – so, rather than distract from them, I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead. Read, enjoy, and maybe discover why you love RPGs, too.

partying concert crowd image by pixabay.com / ktphotography

Yesterday, the list of nominees for the 2018 Ennies was announced and Campaign Mastery is one of them, nominated once again for Best Blog!

Sincere congratulations to my fellow nominees, in both my category and in all the others (full list here). No-one who isn’t there can know how much hard work goes into achieving each and every one of these nominations. And my thanks to everyone who has congratulated me for the nomination.

To anyone finding Campaign Mastery for the first time as a result, let me welcome you. The goal here is to post evergreen content, so you have almost ten years of archives to dig into… have fun!

I’ve made the point in the past that everything I’ve ever done in my life seems to contribute to my RPGs and to this Blog, as though it was all preparation for doing this. The obvious implication is that everyone I’ve ever known has made some contribution, great or small, to achieving this honor – and for that, I thank you all!

Last time we were nominated, I was absolutely chuffed to take home (metaphorically speaking) the Silver. It would be wonderful to go one better this time around, but let’s be honest – it’s a strong field!

Voting opens on July 11, and when it does, I’ll put up a post with the link.

In the meantime, I’ll just enjoy the satisfaction of Campaign Mastery being judged one of the five best blogs of the last year!

Image by pixabay.com / NMueller

I’ve been reading a fascinating book lately: “The Biology Of Human Survival” by Claude A Piantadosi, M.D. This relatively hard-to-find book from Oxford University Press deals with the biological processes by which humans react to various conditions, and hence the hazards posed by those conditions, in a way that is both technically accurate and yet accessible to the reasonably-educated layman.

Right now, I’m only in the latter stages of Chapter 4, the last of what I think of as the ‘foundation’ or ‘preliminary’ chapters before we get to the chapters dedicated to the different conditions that can threaten survival. And already I’ve been getting all sorts of ideas from it – and, somewhat surprisingly, most of them are Fantasy oriented.

Today’s article is going to present a paraphrased summary of selected content from those first few chapters and then look at the ideas that have resulted thus far. So, let’s get started…

Is this a pair of Air Elementals in combat?
‘Color’ by pixabay.com / rawpixel

Or is this an Air Elemental?
Feather Image by pixabay.com / ArtsyBee,
cropping by Mike

Or this?
Butterfly Image by pixabay.com / ArtsyBee,
Background splash and foreground distortions (simulated perspective) by Mike

Basics Of Survival

Survival is achieved by optimizing conditions in three layers. Internal – within the body; surface – near the body; surroundings – farther away from the body. When conditions are incorrect for survival in one of the three it removes a protection that the body has against survival.

When the body encounters conditions that threaten survival it is called stress. The body has a great many reactions to stress which function automatically to reduce this stress. For example, in a hot environment, we sweat, lowering internal body temperature back toward a more tolerable level.

The central concept of a life-support system is to surround the organism with an environment that minimizes physiological stress, mimicking an environment in which the organism is comfortably able to survive.

Preparations for potential disaster/accident/threat may modify the specifics, but that doesn’t alter this fundamental principle.

Adaption

Human beings are amongst the most adaptable species on Earth, but the limits of biological adaption are far smaller than most people realize. About 2/3 of the Earth’s surface is salt water which we may visit briefly but can’t inhabit without technological intervention which produces an artificial environment either on the surroundings scale (submarine, mining platform) or surface scale (wetsuit, etc). When visiting, we can only cope with conditions at the surface, even if we carry a supply of oxygen. Of the remaining land, only human ingenuity and technological intervention permit survival in one half. The rest is too hot, too cold, or at too high an altitude, or is a river or lake – same problem as the seas.

Four critical variables determine the odds of survival in any situation. These are (1) The physics of the environment; (2) the limits of human physiology; (3) the duration of exposure; and (4) adaption, which includes behavioral responses such as what the victim knows about survival dangers and how to prepare for / react to such situations.

Complications arise because of the multidimensional nature of environmental stresses, for example, human physiological responses are different if an environment is hot and dry compared to one that is hot and wet, with some compounding the problem, and some mitigating. A further complication lies in body shape – size, weight, level of body fat, strength, etc.

All physiological responses are therefore a compromise between competing biological imperatives all with the purpose of increasing the potential for survival.

Racial distinctions are also important; every human organism carries a set of inbuilt adaptions to the environment. Some predate the emergence of homo sapiens as a species, and extend back to the first mammals, or even beyond; others have arisen as a result of occupying a specific environment for long enough that pro-survival traits have been the subject of natural selection amongst the population. Many of the differences between races, both overt and subtle, such as skin color, are the result of such adaption. Others, such as the Asiatic eye shape, confer no known survival advantage (yet) and appear simply to be random mutations that have been retained through the generations.

Is this a fire elemental? Or just an environment around the real thing?
Fire Image by pixabay.com / amaterate

Or is this a fire elemental?
Fire image by pixabay.com / 41330

Or perhaps this?
Fractal image by pixabay.com / astronira

Or perhaps this…
Element image by OpenClipart-Vectors,
‘shadow’ effect by Mike

Acclimatization

When exposed to an environment that stresses the organism, a process of adaption begins as the physiology responds to the stress. Some of the resulting changes are aimed at simply coping with the immediate stress, others have the effect of increasing the organism’s tolerance for the particular stresses being experienced in the contemporary environment. The latter is known as Acclimatization.

Not all environmental stress produces this effect; it has to exceed a threshold level, but not by so much that survival is imminently threatened.

Intensity and Duration of the stress are also important factors; the more extreme the conditions, the faster, more intense, and more numerous are the physiological adaptions. You can think of the organism as having a number of parallel responses to environmental conditions of different sensitivities and intensities, with the combination optimized somewhat through natural selection. Redundant responses tend to be lost or modified to remove the redundancy unless they confer some regularly-encountered survival benefit under other conditions. As a general rule, gradual adaption is more effective.

All such adaptive responses are completely reversible unless they have been maintained for so long that the underlying morphology (shape and structure) of the organ affected has been altered by the exposure. However, the time required for such reversal to occur is unrelated to the time required to undergo it in the first place; some are faster, others slower.

One example should be recognizable by just about everyone: we all get used to Winter as it proceeds, to a greater or lesser extent. The more extreme the cold temperatures, the greater this acclimatization. This makes us feel warmer on wintery days once our bodies have made the adaption. However, if warm weather intervenes with unexpected rapidity, even temporarily, not only will we feel the warmth more severely, but if it persists for a week or so, we may lose some or all of that adaption to winter – so a return to frigid conditions feels even colder than the same temperature did before the warm weather arrived. To some extent, of course, the advent of artificial warming and cooling has mitigated these adaptions and made us more prone to be dependent on artificial means for comfort.

Cross-Acclimation

The complexity of biological organisms is revealed by the phenomenon of cross-acclimation, which is to say the integrated adaption to environments with multiple or successive stresses. For example, adaption to the cold helps animals survive ionizing radiation but interferes with the capacity to survive even short-term exposures to a lack of oxygen. Adapting to a lack of oxygen (e.g. at high altitudes) decreases the shivering response to cold. These combine to make it harder to climb tall mountains in Winter than in Summer. On the other hand, acclimatizing to heat acts to increase tolerance for hypoxia.

It is known that adequate supplies of food and water are necessary for acclimation to occur. Manufacturing the compounds that trigger these effects takes energy, and the chemicals must then be transferred through the bloodstream to the locations where they can be effective. Even well short of the point of causing death, malnutrition and dehydration diminish tolerance to every known environmental stress. In particular, malnutrition impairs tolerance for cold and disease and dehydration to heat and cold. The combination of both in a cold environment constitutes a triple-whammy!

We’re still in the relatively early stages of understanding these complex interactions. More than 100 different neuropeptides and hormones have been discovered that are produced by the human body in varying amounts and combinations under the influence of different stresses. Many more are believed to be undiscovered. At least a dozen, for example, are able to influence the internal temperature of the body, while others may increase or decrease sensitivity to internal temperature in other autonomic responses, inhibiting reactions to body temperature increases in some cases and triggering them in others – depending on other conditions.

While reading this section of the book, I had the distinct impression that this aspect of biochemistry was still at a pre-Mendeleev equivalent stage. Before Mendeleev, a whole bunch of Elements were known to chemistry; he created the first systematic ordering of them, in the form of a periodic table, by virtue of which he was able to predict the discovery of, and some of the characteristic traits of, still unknown Elements. At the moment, we assume that there are more neuropeptides and hormones waiting to be discovered because we are still finding them, and have not yet accounted for all the physiological changed known to occur. Either some of the ones we know about have secondary effects, therefore, or there are more to be discovered. As yet, there is not enough known to systematically organize the knowledge we have on the subject, or at least, that’s my impression; and that means that we can’t predict the properties of the undiscovered chemistries, knowledge that would help us identify what to look for and where.

In other words, our knowledge on the subject in general is still rather Empirical.

Most of the molecules that we have discovered so far have both unique and redundant functions, which is to say that each has a specific role to play in regulating the organism and has other effects which are primarily the role of another such molecule.

Starvation: A side-note

People have been dying from starvation throughout human history. Around one million such deaths occur annually, even today, or about one in 6000. And yet, there is still a lot we don’t know about it. Some facts have nevertheless become clear:

• Death is only attributable directly to starvation in a small percentage of cases; increased susceptibility to illness and infection as a result of malnutrition is a far greater killer. This is especially true of children, where the numbers are 23% and 77%, respectively.
• Children, by virtue of the fact that their bodies are still developing, are prone to a host of complicating aftereffects from malnutrition, including a delay in mental development, a permanent decrease in intellectual performance, and an increase in childhood mortality from other causes.
• Physical stunting of growth is a primary effect of malnutrition and is often used as an indicator of starvation. There is good news from this indicator: stunting worldwide fell from 47% in 1980 to 33% in 2000. However, one third of all children in developing countries exhibits at least some stunting by the age of 5, with two-thirds of these being located in Asia, primarily south-central Asia; One quarter of the children affected live in Africa; and one-sixth live elsewhere.
• Predictive methods for death through malnutrition are more effective for men than for women. Men also tolerate starvation less effectively than do women. The reasons for these facts are unknown.
• Adults can survive weeks or months without food depending on the amount of fat on the body. A 70kg man can fast for about 70 days, losing all but 3% of fat and one-third of lean body mass (a small amount is essential to maintaining brain, bone marrow, and cell membrane functions). Death from starvation can occur at any point after 50% loss of body mass. During the Dutch Famine of WWII, previously well-nourished individuals survived a year of hunger followed by 6 months of severe starvation, all compounded by the stress of war and foreign occupation. However, while obesity may carry a greater store of energy for the body to draw upon, it greatly increases the risk of death from other factors. Finally, certain compounds are required for normal bodily function – vitamins and the like – and the lack of these can also cause death or disease long before the point of death from starvation is reached.

Types of Adaption

When you dig into it, there are 5 types of adaption that can occur (others may categorize and generalize these differently), the last of which has three notable sub-types:

• Intracellular responses
• Intercellular responses
• Macro-organic responses
• Metabolic function responses
• Whole-body responses:
  • Tolerance
  • Acclimatization
  • Evolution

These are all important and interesting in their own ways, and – for our purposes – to varying degrees. A brief look at each is therefore in order (and also because their meanings might not be immediately apparent to the casual reader):

Intracellular responses

Internal responses within a cell. Quite often, different cells will have different intracellular responses to different stimuli. People have absolutely no direct control over these responses; they are often (usually?) part of the internal regulatory systems that keep the organism alive. However, some of them can have both direct and indirect effects on mental state, such as triggering the fight-or-flight response.

Intercellular responses

The way cells interact (and bonding together into an organ is a type of interaction in this context) is the second order of response. Quite often, chemicals released as an Intracellular response will bond to receptors on the walls of other cells, modifying the behavior of that cell. Some can even change the shape of the cell, which in turn produces changes in the shape of the organ.

Macro-organic responses

Changes that affect the functioning of an entire organ constitute the third level of response to an environmental stress. As indicated above, such changes are often the result of intercellular responses by those specialized cells that constitute the bodily organ. There are often several orders of response, trading responsiveness for effectiveness and overall impact. A quick response will normally be the least effective but most responsive; a slower but more more substantial response follows if the stress has not been abated by the “quick response”. Another way to look at it is “The more significant the alteration, the more difficult it is” – sometimes, interim responses do nothing but prepare bodily systems for the change that might be forthcoming.

Metabolic function responses

Macro-organic responses can result in a change in a specific metabolic function of the organism, shutting some down and putting others on overtime. In effect, the organism changes the way it functions in response to the stress. For example, in response to infections, the internal body temperature changes to a value that is inimical to the propagation of the infectious agent, and – through layers of such responses – fever continues to climb in an attempt to make the body a more hostile environment for the viral or bacterial agent to operate in. At the same time, digestive processes slow (so appetite is reduced) (on the principle that food supplies are as readily available to ‘the enemy’ as to the cells that make up the body), breathing alters (changing the acidity levels of the blood, another ‘hostile environment’ factor), and production of white blood cells goes through the roof to combat the infection.

Many medications stimulate or cause similar effects. For example, my Diabetes-management medication causes my liver to approximately triple its activity levels, increasing my need for fluid intake and flushing more sugar out of my bloodstream.




You might consider this an Earth Elemental.
Bismuth “glazed includes” image by pixabay.com / Hans



Or this might inspire you.
‘decor’ image by pixabay.com / MR1313
Background splash by Mike



I know at least one GM who used something like this to depict his Earth Elementals.
tetra-methyl-uronium rendering by pixabay.com / WikimediaImages,
Background by Mike



…and this is a valid if unusual choice.
‘gold’ image by pixabay.com / peachpink,
background and additional fill by Mike



It’s always hard to ignore this as a possibility.
‘bornite’ image by pixabay.com / CoffeeVampire



…and this is, perhaps, the most traditional interpretation.
‘beach’ image by pixabay.com / Pexels

Whole-body responses

Of course, it’s a short leap from altering individual metabolic functions to altering the way the organism as a whole copes with the situation – often requiring nothing more than a change in perspective. In fact, this is where medicine started. But this becomes significant in conjunction with the point made earlier – that the ‘switching off’ of a response takes place at a different rate to the ‘switching on’ of that response.

This poses a natural enhancement to survival rates, because it means that, having recently encountered a significant environmental stress, physiological processes remain primed to cope with a recurrence for some time.

In general, laymen think about responses as taking fractions of seconds, seconds, or – at most – minutes. Some are actually more substantial, if more subtle, and take hours, days, or even weeks to manifest – and to switch off. And some responses, at this scale, can be permanent once triggered.

This becomes clearer when you look at the three sub-types of whole-body response.

Tolerance

“Tolerance” is the capacity for the organism to achieve stable equilibrium with it’s environment in a shorter period of time. In other words, once you get used to a particular condition, you become able to get comfortable in those conditions more quickly. This usually occurs at the expense of tolerance for some other conditions that are not so regularly encountered. My personal experience is that Tolerance is acquired more easily with youth. I will never forget wearing a short sleeve shirt one day in 1981 and being perfectly comfortable, dressed that way, outdoors, while it was snowing. Only lightly, but snowing, nevertheless.

My personal experience is also that tolerance is also relatively fragile – constant temperatures and especially constant levels of windchill are required. Gusting winds, regardless of the external temperature, repeatedly activate more short-term responses or deactivate them, disrupting the stability of tolerance.

One way of looking at tolerance is that the baseline environment of the organism becomes altered to match the most frequently-encountered conditions, and it is this perspective that places Tolerance in the whole-body category. In reality, of course, it is compounded from lower-level responses that have not yet fully deactivated from the last time they were triggered.

It is also important to note that there are limitations to Tolerance. No matter how much underwater swimming you do, you will never become Tolerant to the point of being able to breathe in that environment. What will happen is that lung capacity will improve, capacity to withstand changes in pressure may improve, capacity to tolerate temperature changes as one descends may improve, muscle responses and even the shape of individual muscles will alter to become more efficient at moving in that environment, and so on.

Acclimatization

The second type of whole-body response requires more long-term exposure than mere tolerance, which can be acquired in days or hours (depending on the severity of the conditions encountered). This is Acclimatization, which was discussed at length earlier in this article.

Acclimatization can take days or weeks to manifest, and more days or weeks to be lost. In fact, it’s probably more accurate to speak of it “diminishing” or “increasing” over such spans. A span of (relatively) warm weather in mid-winter may cost you some of your acclimatization, but – depending on the duration and intensity – probably won’t completely reverse it. That takes the change of seasons to achieve.

There can also be an argument made that some acclimatization processes take years or decades to be lost. I am used to the weather that I encounter where I live (Sydney); even moving just a few hundred miles away would produce subtly different climatic patterns that would not quite match up. Some days would be comfortable, but a greater percentage of days would not – until I again Acclimatized.

It should also be noted that Acclimatization to conditions in which comfort is more easily achieved is more rapid than acclimatization to extremes. Thus, when capacity for Tolerance shrinks with age, we are drawn to warmer climates (but not hot ones) where the demand for Tolerance is reduced. Ideally, for maximum comfort, we would migrate like the ducks, flying south (from the North American / European perspective) for the Winter, and returning north for the Summer.

Evolution

Random mutations that confer an advantage when particular conditions are experienced occur all the time. Until such conditions are encountered, provided that they don’t also cause a concomitant survival liability, there is no particular reason for these potential traits to either spread or to be lost. However, when the triggering conditions are encountered, these mutations confer a notable survival advantage, and so tend to spread through a population.

Sometimes, they confer an advantage that outweighs an inevitable liability, because of a particular stress that will routinely be encountered. That’s why black people are susceptible to sickle-cell anemia – it’s the side-effect of an evolutionary advantage because it confers greater resistance to Malaria. Only a small percentage of the population are affected by the susceptibility, but a large percentage of the population would encounter malaria over the course of their lifetimes – and so this particular double-edged sword has spread widely through this population group.

Were it not for the use of technology to sustain individuals afflicted by such hereditary diseases, the spread of black populations to areas in which Malaria is encountered far more infrequently – a socioeconomic phenomenon – would have commenced a process of racial divergence that would eventually split the two populations into different races.

Of course, these are extreme examples. Most are not so dramatic. But even a slight propensity for the more efficient metabolizing of food can confer an advantage in an area where famines occur more regularly. The more subtle the advantage conferred, the more it will be drowned out by other factors, and the more slowly it will spread through a population.

Extrapolating too far along this line of thought brings the conclusion that an analysis of the prevalence of a particular racial feature can derive a direct measurement of its’ value in terms of survival, for example, comparing the incidence of fair-haired people in (say) France or England relative to Scandinavia. What’s the percentage of dark-haired Spaniards? The conclusion is at least partially fallacious because it assumes that survival is the only factor at play. Where it not for that, you would be forced to conclude that being red-headed was a pro-survival trait amongst certain population groups.

Why all this is useful knowledge, I: Aging

Aging is the biological process of growing older. As a condition that afflicts everyone who lives long enough, it seems only natural that humans would evolve to become more long-lived. Unfortunately, there are far too many external factors to assess with any certainty that such selection is taking place. Certainly, the ability to produce offspring at a more advanced age would inevitably increase the propensity for an individuals genes being passed on.

If we view aging as the symptoms of an ‘environmental stress’ (time), and apply the concepts described earlier in this article, it becomes possible to devise a system for the simulation of aging in humans for use in an RPG. This approach seems eminently reasonable when the leading contenders for the mechanisms of aging are considered: accumulated damage to metabolic systems and processes, and accumulated transcription errors in the DNA when cells reproduce.

We could stipulate, for example, that from the commencement of adolescence to the achievement of adulthood, characters gain the benefits of 5% of their ultimate (mature) CON every 2 years, and that prior to this time, the rate is 5% per year, rounded down.

Adolescence generally starts at about 10 years of age, give or take, and adulthood is roughly 20 years of age. That’s a 10-year span, so characters get the last 25% of their CON between those years. That also leaves 50% of their CON to be acquired from Birth to 10, so the newborn’s con is effectively 25% of the adult. A healthy child is more likely to become a healthy adult, and there is enough of a difference to be noticeable.

More to the point, tracking HP “bonuses” from CON backwards in time on this scale shows how narrowly the margins of survival can be – a typical human can end up with a birth CON of 2, giving them d8-4, or perhaps d6-4, hit points. Of course, if this yields 0 or less HP, the individual might not survive long enough to become an adult! At best, they will have 4 (or 2) HP – which isn’t a lot of margin for the survival of illnesses and accidents. This yields a fairly reasonable simulation of child mortality rates prior to the technological age, for all that it seems extreme by modern standards.

Of course, we already know that adults in the game have survived this experience. So our attention turns to the other end of the scale. Every d10-1 years, starting at age 25, the character has to make a CON save at DC5+Age or lose 10% of their current CON (round loss down, minimum 1).

Some spans, the character will age rapidly. Some spans, they will decline slowly if at all. This rule actually combines a number of very subtle considerations that are worth noting:

• ‘their current CON” – this means that a character may be able to survive more than 10 failed rolls. For example, a character with CON 16 would lose 1 CON for every failed roll – so they could theoretically fail 16 times before dying of old age. At average CON levels, that changes to 10 failed rolls.
• It also means that characters become frail a lot faster than they die, which is an accurate modeling of reality. That in turn makes survival through the last stages of life as problematic as infant survival was; when you only have 1 or 2 HP to your name, any accident or illness can be fatal.
• The roll required keeps getting harder. There will come a point where failure is automatic. The higher the character’s CON, the longer this can be delayed.
• The average of a d10-1 rolls is 4.5, which means that characters ON AVERAGE will have to make two saves every 9 years, starting at age 25. So, 25; 34, 43, 52, 61, 70, 79, 88, 97, 106, and so on are 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, and 19 rolls, respectively, on average.
• My rough calculations say that a CON 10 character will die of old age at about 70 years of age on average, but poor rolls on the d10-1 can drop this substantially. Higher CON characters will tend to have higher lifespans, but again, can die more quickly. In rare cases, good rolls may yield a considerably greater life span.

Another way of interpreting all this is that we are constantly aging and repairing the damage that results, but gradually lose that capability as we grow older.

This might be what you imagine a Water Elemental to look like…
‘Abstract’ image by pixabay.com / Prawny

…or you could pick something like this – I have, more than once! Or… well, you get the idea.
‘Ice Crystal’ image by pixabay.com / geralt

Why all this is useful knowledge, II: Elves

With this new view of aging, it becomes trivially easy to describe a biological mechanism by which long-lived species like Elves last as long as they do. For example, a cell reproduction mechanism in which two cells combine to become four, rather than the simple mitosis of human cells, would enable a tell-me-twice DNA test that greatly reduces transcription errors, slowing the aging process. Other mechanisms are also possible; this is just an example.

This becomes interesting when you start thinking about the consequences. The cell reproduction mechanism described, for example, would also slow growth and healing of injuries, but would make it far more likely that an individual could heal an injury that would kill a human. It would spread infections through the body faster, but also assist the Elf in overcoming them more quickly – so fevers would be shorter and sharper. At some point, though, a critical threshold would be reached in which the fever won the battle – so death from fevers and infections would be both more rapid and more likely. Overall, the risks to the species wouldn’t change; but the fine details would be just different enough (and all plausibly-connected for verisimilitude) to establish the long-lived as a different species.

Why all this is useful knowledge, III: Elementals

And that signposts the way to the real value of this subject – considering non-human species from other environments and making these more “real” by understanding how their biology (or equivalents) function.

In turn, that could suggest new abilities for such creatures. In cases where such nascent potentials are realized, I tend to refer to the creatures as “Noble” or “Royal” Elementals.

A functional approach

Rather than a really abstract approach requiring a lot of technical detail and understanding, it is sufficient for our purposes to take a broader, more abstract, more generalized, more “conceptual” approach. This has been in the back of my mind throughout the writing of this article, and was – arguably – the original point that I wanted to make. As writing has proceeded, I have been contemplating the alternatives, and the one that I kept coming back to as the one that made the most sense from a practical point of view is a functional approach.

To that end, I have listed 12 essential biological functions below. Any organism should have some process that replicates these functions for the organism. Detail each, making them as unique or common to all Elementals as you like, and you define the basic biology of the species. Each answer can suggest one or more interesting abilities or traits, or can simply provide an interesting detail about the race.

Cohesion

Something binds the organism together. In humans, that’s the job of the skin. It can be tough or pervious to material objects, it can be natural or inherently magical, it can be some form of force. Depending on its nature, it may be easier or harder to knit back together when it is penetrated.

Structure

Something keeps incompatible biological processes separate. In the human body, these are performed by discrete organs, which are held in place by the skeleton. Other arrangements are obviously possible – just look at the sheer variety of structures and shapes we have found amongst other life-forms here on earth. One option that is always fun if justified by the native environment is some form of adjustable morphology (i.e. shape).

Sensory

Humans have multiple senses. Some have suggested as many as 13. Some senses tell us about our internal status, some about our bodies relative to the world around us, and some gather information directly about the world. What would appropriate analogues be for the organism under consideration, what can they perceive as a result that we can’t, what can they not that we can?

Communication

In order to facilitate communications, you need to be both Send and Receive information through the normal medium with which the body is surrounded. This may be achieved through the senses already defined, or it might be that a new sense is required.

Rationality

Every sentient race needs some analogue of a brain, even though it may be distributed throughout the organism in some cases. And this needs to be protected from harm. Depending on the communications method chosen, you may even be able to externalize it, leaving it behind and out of danger.

Manipulation

Every sentient race needs some means of manipulating their environment. In many cases, these will be the source of the usual attack forms, so that can provide a clue, but it might also be something completely separate from the natural weapons.

Mobility

Every sentient race needs some means of moving around their natural environment, seeking nourishment if nothing else. How do the creatures move?

Ingestion

For that matter, what do they consume? Humans need air, water, and food. What do Elementals need? This begins the process of transforming an environment into an ecology which is the natural habitat of the species. Don’t ignore the possibilities for inspiration, but don’t get too side-tracked either; other processes also need to be contained within the environment..

Distribution

The nutrients need to be broken down into useful form (digestion) if they aren’t already and then distributed through the body of the organism – the function of the blood and heart in the human system. But this also conveys response agents, and that can be significant.

Waste Disposal

Once the nutrients have been extracted, there’s usually something left over. This needs to be removed, and there needs to be some process in the natural environment that recycles it. What’s more, most species do not thrive when living in their own wastes, humans included; so think about the diversification of the environment needed to explain this. This continues the process of transforming an environment into an ecology.

Healing

You should probably have been thinking about this already, prompted by the “Cohesion” and “Distribution” functions. But it’s time to get specific – how does the organism react to damage? Is it vulnerable to any particular type of damage as a result, and/or resistant to one? Can such vulnerabilities be used as a clue to the original question? Can they be overcome by the intelligent manipulation of the environment, just as humans use clothes and fire? This question begins explorations of the social structures of the race in question! Again, don’t fall into the trap of getting distracted, there’s still more.

Reproduction

How does the species reproduce? There are several different techniques employed by life on earth that you can draw on for inspiration. For example, one variety of elemental might “bud”, in the process transferring half of it’s memories and skills to the progeny, effectively creating two identical individuals with completely divergent experiences and personalities where once there was one. If you think that makes this variety of Elementals too powerful, you can specify that there is a percentage of the information that is lost, overwritten by redundant copies of the information that HAS to be transferred (such as how to move).

Personal Environment

Let’s throw a kong-sized monkey wrench into the works. Contemplate this: being summoned to the Prime Material Plane by a Wizard or other magic user exposes the elemental to an environment that is about as far removed from it’s native environment (in most cases) as it’s possible to get. How do these metabolic functions react? What are the consequences? How does the elemental survive? Is it like diving, where you can live within a hostile environment for a period of time before it kills you? Is it possible to develop a Tolerance? Is it possible to acclimatize to selected environments within the plane that might provide a refuge?

Be careful to maintain consistency; it’s always useful to contemplate the answers you’ve given already for inspiration each time you come to a new item. The more unified you can make the resulting variant creature, the more plausible you make it.

In the past, I’ve modeled Fire Elementals on Jet Engines, Water Elementals on single-celled organisms with self-polymerizing surface capabilities (reducing the effect of stabbing and slashing attacks), given Earth Elementals cryonic crystalline brains and cryogenic touches, and made Air Elementals the absolute masters of force-fields. But there are hundreds of alternatives to explore.

And, of course, it doesn’t stop with Elementals. The same basic principles apply to everything from Mind Flayers to KuoTua to Rakshasa. You don’t have to rewrite what’s canon, if you don’t want to; you can simply add to it.

Related Posts

There are a host of other posts that you might find relevant to this one (and vice-versa):

• Survivors Of The Underdark: A New Dwarven Paradygm
• Creating ecology-based random encounters [series of 3]
• Random Encounter Tables – My Old-school Way
• Not Like My Tribe – Sophisticated Primitives, Part 1
• Not Like My Tribe – Sophisticated Primitives, Part 2
• Inventing and Reinventing Races in DnD: An Introduction to the Orcs and Elves
  [series parts 1-5]
• Alien In Innovation: Creating Original Non-human Species
• A Population Of Dinosaurs and the impact on RPG ecologies
• Pieces Of Creation: The Hidden Truth Of Doppelgangers
• The Floi Af Loft & The Ryk Bolti [an adventure in 3 posts]
• The Age Of An Elf: Demographics of the long-lived
• Ergonomics and the Non-human
• By Popular Demand: The Ergonomics Of Dwarves