There are a number of valuable lessons for any RPG that can be observed in the looking at how Terry Pratchett achieved the success of the Discworld series of novels.

Introduce the Key Concepts Early

In the first entry in the series, he introduced the Discworld itself, established its basic physical and conceptual parameters, and began to explore what made the world unique. He introduced the basic rules of the world – everyone, no matter how trivial or mundane they might be within the society is a larger-than-life personality, for example (even the luggage)– and he tolled a rollicking story that was greatly entertaining. This story ended on a cliffhanger, which is always a great way for a first adventure to end.

Make sure you tie up loose ends quickly

When you have a world shaped like a disk, it logically begs the question of what happens at the edges, and that was a key part of the focus of the sequel, which also picked up on the incomplete plot threads from the first novel, and brought them to a satisfactory conclusion. None of the many other novels would end that way, each would henceforth be self-contained.

Heighten the ‘Magic’ at the beginning

You see this all the time with new TV shows these days – the first episode is a “double-length blockbuster”. So ubiquitous has this practice become that when Marvel’s “Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.” premiered on Australian Television, the network responsible back-to-backed the first two episodes and promoted them as – you’ve guessed it!

“Sapient Pearwood” hardly appears in the series at all beyond the first two novels, which feature The Luggage, but that’s all right – it was just a plot device to justify the over-the-top character of The Luggage. For that matter, The Luggage doesn’t reappear that often either, and neither does the initial star of the Show, Rincewind, though he does rate a mention from time to time.

Have an anchor

In the third novel, Pratchett either introduces or begins to focus on one of the central characters around which almost all the remaining novels will pivot, in one way or another – the all-too-human Death. Even when Death is not central to the story, he remains a focal point.

Death is the anchor which grounds the rest of the series in the somewhat-tilted reality of the Discworld for many reasons. First, he’s a fun and interesting character. Second, his position within the Plenum makes him the perfect exposition delivery vehicle, one who understands almost everything about the nature of reality or who can set out to investigate whatever key aspect is central to the story. Thirdly, he himself is, by his nature, an instigator of change, enabling him to become the driving force behind many subsequent novels, starting with Mort. And finally, he us someone who can be expected to interact with just about anyone who is anyone, or who is doing something interesting – even if it is simply by being the victim, as at the start of Hogfather.

As the anthropormorphic representation, symbolic of the entire Discworld Universe, Death makes the perfect character to anchor all the subsequent stories to that universe, creating a unification that would otherwise be far less substantial.

Build On Your Beginnings

Virtually every story thereafter adds something new to the equation, a new ingredient that can be drawn upon time and time again as fits the needs of the story. Each and every one of them adds something imaginative to the mix, building up the world narrative brick by narrative brick.

Continuity Ties It All Together

Even though the stories stand alone, many are outright sequels to a previous story. In fact, virtually all the stories beyond that initial trilogy can be extracted into one of three ongoing plot-threads: the Three Witches (especially Granny Weatherwax), The Watch (especially Captain Vimes and the eventual-Captain Carrot), and the Death Family story (especially Death, Albert, Mort, and Susan.) Ingredients from any of these can appear, when relevant, in any other story – a role often reserved for the Wizards of the Unseen University – without being the central focus of the story. There are a few stories that stand independent of these three plot threads, but they are isolated exceptions.

Characters Remain Consistent

No matter how much they may learn and grow, the personalities of the characters remains the same. The situations they encounter may differ, but this consistency of personality makes them somewhat predictable in response – the key is always the “X factor” of how these plot elements will come together to solve whatever the basic problem may be, this time round.

When you stop and think about it, this is exactly the way PCs should be in an RPG. No matter what they learn to do, no matter how powerful they become, their central personalities should remain fixed and consistent; each adventure is the story of how the ingredients of their capacities and personalities combine with the circumstances and opportunities provided by the GM to resolve or advance the plot. This is true whether we’re talking about a strongly-interwoven style of campaign with strong continuity, or a more episodic structure such as that of the Discworld series.

Take these principles to heart

These hallmarks are shared by just about every successful RPG campaign that I can bring to mind. The implication is that if they are not true of your campaign, you may be missing a bet – something to improve the campaign still further, to take it to the next level – whatever that may be.

Until we meet again, give that some thought…

A relatively short article today, largely due to the fact that I am still working to resolve my computer-related dramas, and trying to get used to an altogether too-”helpful” laptop, which likes to jump up and down lines in the middle of words, making typing excruciatingly difficult… Hopefully, those problems will be resolved soon, but in the meantime, I hope this is of value!

The West Wing said it very succinctly:

“The costliest, most damaging, disruptions occur when something we take for granted stops working.”

We depend on the mundane and everyday aspects of life to function seamlessly at least most of the time in order to be able to cope with the occasional extraordinary disruption or Act Of God. Modern technology and social infrastructure are so complicated, interlinked and interwoven, that the occasional minor disruption generates ripple effects that are felt throughout the entire system.

Our computer systems, to anyone who has any sort of education in the history and development of them, are miraculous ballets of synchronized dancing electrons. The ultimate in icebergs, far more than 9-tenths lie below the surface, hidden from view – it’s more like 9999 ten-thousandths – at least until something begins to go wrong. For some reason, this subject has been occupying a lot of my thoughts lately. Along with things like “Why Me?”, “What Now?”, and “Okay, a new problem to solve. Life would be dull without the challenge – but I could really do with a bit of ‘Dull’ in my life right now.”

The compounding of multiple problems, such as the challenges I face at the moment, are a relevant issue to RPGs in four ways.

The First Point Of Relevance: Campaign Mastery itself

First, and most obviously, there’s the disruption to this blog / online magazine. I’m reasonably convinced that I, and the combination of Johnn and I previously, have made a contribution to the hobby, and have still more to give. The number of new series that I have launched over the last few weeks are indicative that I’m nowhere near played-out yet. The disruption being felt because of the difficulties currently being experienced threatens the stability of regular twice-a-week servings of gaming insight that Campaign Mastery delivers, so that’s a primary consequence – the splash of the stone hitting the pond, if you will. The immediate ripples of that impact will be felt by every reader we have. Sometimes they won’t even be aware of the impact – if it means that an article, that might have been exactly what they needed, at exactly the time they needed it, does not get written and published.

I was planning a shake-up in how I organize the ongoing writing of series to ensure that none of these ne series – nor any of the old ones that are not yet complete – end up forgotten, abandoned, or incomplete, but those plans were still in the early stages of development – and have had to be set aside for a while, because other matters have been occupying my time. So that’s at least one ripple.

Any hint of irregularity tends to scare off advertisers, which are essential if the site is to remain at least revenue-neutral, so the problem itself makes it harder to recover from the problem: that’s one heck of a ripple, and one that compounds other problems as well – so it can be said to be generating secondary ripples in at least my life, and placing the stability of Campaign Mastery under still more strain – which affects every reader we have, in some degree – whether that’s great or small.

Then, too, I’ve been somewhat neglectful of the business side of the operation for some time – I have only so much physical capacity, and publishing an article that’s up to my self-imposed standards twice every week has consumed all of it, and at times, more. I was hopeful of at least and at last making a start on those issues in the New Year – but those ambitions may have to be set aside (again) in favor of trying to resolve more urgent problems. Another ripple.

And of course, there’s the disruption in my thought processes. I’m not as sharp as I used to be – starting to feel the ravages of time, I guess, having marked my 50th Birthday much earlier this year – and such disruptions become progressively harder to cope with. You notice it in little ways – mostly, in not being as flexible and able to to react quickly as you used to be – and evolve strategies for coping, often without noticing. Which is all fine when it comes to small disruptions and surprises, but makes catastrophes and disasters of any scale that little bit harder to cope with.

In a nutshell: anything that affects my life, affects my capacity to continue writing Campaign Mastery – and that affects every reader we have, or might have in the future.

A minor aside to bring up a point that some blog writers might not have realized: The momentum of success. The better the articles that you write, the more audience you attract (I’m very proud of, and grateful for, the readership that Campaign Mastery has attracted). The more audience you attract, the greater the statistical probability that whatever you write – provided that it’s up to the same standards that you used to attract that reader in the first place – will be exactly the right thing at the right time for someone. Reliability and quality of content bring success, it’s that simple – the trick is always to maintain both, together with regularly being at least interesting or relevant to each reader you might have.

I take each unsubscription as a failure – it means that I haven’t written enough of whatever that person was looking for. Again, some failures are inevitable – the standard they expected, or the focus, may not be what you’re aiming to deliver. You can’t please all the people, all the time.

But each one also is justification for some soul-searching on the part of the site owner / author / editor. Every new reader carries a responsibility to do your best to deliver something to them that is worth the time and effort of their reading it. Just a little food for thought.

The Second Point Of Relevance: Game Worlds

It must always be considered that to a certain extent, every RPG attempts to simulate a “virtual” society, and a “virtual” ecology, and a “virtual” environment. To keep the difficulty of this task within practical limits, we necessarily simplify the simulation, and take various shortcuts:

• We may start from the basis of an existing third party game setting, so that a lot of the work has already been done for us;
• We don’t try and do it all at once, starting small and adding to the simulation incrementally, a little with each adventure, each game session;
• We do our best to “wall off” those parts that have not yet been developed, hopefully unobtrusively;
• We draw inspiration and ideas from elsewhere, especially when we’re stuck;
• We routinely simplify and abstract complex systems like weather and climate and social interaction. There’s a continual battle between accuracy of simulation and functionality of abstraction.

There are undoubtedly more entries that could be added to this list, but that’s enough to make the point.

How many of us have thought about how that society could be disrupted, or would be disrupted by the consequences of some relatively trivial failure?

It’s human nature to appreciate the importance of our own roles in society more than those who don’t occupy that role. That is what makes the saying “walk a mile in the other person’s shoes” so insightful. When we feel undervalued and under-rewarded, it’s also human nature to demand attention. Inevitably, someone is always going to be pushing or pulling at the wrong social lever for what seem like perfectly valid and justifiable reasons. Of course, if such disruptions occur when there is not a heightened demand for the services being disrupted, they won’t have as much leverage, and these inequities are not felt as keenly; so it’s inevitable that this pushing and prodding will always happen at the worst possible time. It doesn’t take much for this practice to become systemic and entrenched; one labor union demands a pay rise, and gets it, so others demand it also. Each time the union succeeds in getting what they have demanded – even if it’s effectively through extortion – it strengthens the case of the next. Wages go up, so the costs of whoever pays those wages go up, so the price they demand for their goods and services has to rise to pay for it, so the cost of living for every other member of society rises, giving everyone a case for their own wage increase. Eventually, everyone is back to the parity relative to everyone else, ensuring that the basic stability of society remains intact. That’s the real meaning of inflation. The system breaks down, at least a little when one group receives a disproportionate increase – either too large or too small – becoming more fragile.

Then, too, it at the time of peak demand that providers of any given service are stretched most thin; the demands leave them tired, even exhausted, and tired people make mistakes.

It follows that the time of greatest demand for a particular service is also the time when that service is most likely to be disrupted. This is easily simulated with a simple die roll whenever a service is required, and most GMs handle this without a second thought. If there is a fire, they roll dice to determine how long it takes the fire department to respond, and they automatically increase the demand for such services during the hot months within the game world.

Where a lot of GMs fall down on the job is in considering the secondary impacts of the reason for the demand, and the ripple effects of the increased demand or incidental disruption of the satisfaction of the services in question.

Example: It’s the hot season, so the fire department is overworked and slower to respond, and less able to respond effectively. Because of the heat, people run air conditioners far more than they do at other times of the year. This puts an increased load on the electricity supply, so you get more electrical failures and disruptions in summer than in winter – or you would, if the electricity suppliers weren’t aware of the fact and prepared accordingly. For those who maintain the electricity grid, Spring is the season of peak demand, because they are rushing around trying to ensure that everything is ready for the peak demands of summer. Overloaded electrical systems are more prone to fail, sometimes causing fires – further boosting the demand for fire department services, but that’s a minor feedback mechanism. More importantly, electricity suppliers have to ration out the available electricity when demand exceeds capacity – and industry generally uses a lot more electricity than domestic consumption. A small cut to industry supplies is more than enough, usually, to cope with the increased domestic demand (heat wave conditions are another matter). So manufacturing capacity is more often impacted by periods of peak demand – the evening hours in particular. During the day, more people are at work than are at home, so the domestic demand is relatively low – lower, in fact, than anytime except very late at night when most people have gone to bed. It follows that the most efficient time for manufacturing use of electricity, the time when the greatest supply is available, is the late-night shift. But that costs, because there is often a penalty rate applied to night-work – so the cost of manufacturing rises if the manufacturer takes advantage of the increased electrical supply, and it may rise if they don’t, because they can’t run their machines at full efficiency. The impact then becomes a question of manufacturing capacity and profit margin vs. demand – meeting demand often means cutting into profit margins, or raising prices. But raising prices reduces demand while increasing capacity to meet demand – so this is a delicate balancing act, one in which getting it even a little bit wrong leaves the manufacturer vulnerable to a loss of market share to a competitor. If it’s human nature to make mistakes, eventually every manufacture will increase prices too much or too little, will cut or boost production too much or too little. If they are lucky, this will be spotted in time and corrected; but it’s all too easy to enter a death-spiral of catastrophic unprofitability, and before you know it, an old and trusted brand vanishes from the supermarket shelves. This is bad enough in a competitive environment, where there is a rival to pick up the slack in supply, but what of those cases where one manufacturer has so much market share that they hold, effectively, a monopoly? What of those cases where the product is considered essential? And, finally, consider the position of a rival, if there was one – who finds the demand for his products suddenly skyrocketing? How much additional manufacturing capacity do they need to provide, and what will it cost? That’s why, when a brand vanishes from the shelves, its rivals often have to increase their prices – to fund an expansion in capacity to meet the new demand levels. In theory, this will enable them to lower costs, increasing profit margins as the capital investment is repaid, permitting the higher price to be stable for a long time to come – long enough for inflation to catch up with it. But it’s easy to grow accustomed to a higher profit margin… Of course, with the product of their labor in demand, this is also the “perfect” time for the factory workers to demand an increase in pay (eating into those higher profit margins before the capital investment is repaid, and disrupting an already-fragile supply).

That’s a long string of dominos, but what it adds up to is that domestic electrical consumption dictates – in part – the cost and availability of products. The manufacturer who most closely aligns his production schedule with the available resources, after factoring in biasing factors will be more profitable and hence more viable. And it’s an awful lot for any abstract simulation to take into account. In relatively trivial cases like this, it has no real impact on the verisimilitude of the game world; both players and GM simply assume that if the connection is not obvious, it’s not important enough to factor in.

When the case is not so trivial, the impact can be more severe, and yet just as hard to model. Consider the effect of a failure of electricity supplies – even a temporary one – on food storage. We’ve all had to throw food away (or better yet, give it away) after a blackout because we can’t consume it before it spoils. But that implies that we have to replace it when the electricity comes back on – so a blackout often leads to a local surge in demand for perishables, emptying supermarket shelves of the affected products. Now contemplate for a moment the effects of a more widespread failure, one that affects the supply to an industrial-scale freezer. That’s why most such have their own generators, something the typical suburban home doesn’t possess – but in a worst-case scenario, where the generator fails, it can be enough to close a business for good.

Or, more critical again, consider the power supply to a hospital or nursing home. Once again, they will usually have their own generators for such emergencies – and if those generators fail, lives are put at risk, and society would count itself lucky if none of those risks actually resulted in deaths.

A solution

It’s often said that problems come in threes, and while I’m not aware of any statistical analysis that backs up the maxim, it provides a great shortcut to making catastrophes and disruptions more “real” in an RPG. Whatever the problem is, it counts as one of the three; that means that concurrent with that problem there should be two other emergencies. If they can flow logically from the first, so much the better; but society is so interlinked, and the simulation is so incapable of containing every possible connection, that you can get away without an obvious link. People will simply assume that there is one, or that it’s coincidence – because coincidences do happen.

An Example: There’s an emergency of some sort at a nuclear power station. That’s problem number one. The nature of the problem compels the authorities to commence an evacuation of the local vicinity; but that can’t be kept secret, there’s a panic, and before too long, the highways are jammed. That’s problem number two. Problem number three: brownouts encourage looters. Or perhaps there’s enough capacity that there is no need for brownouts, and an emergency generator starts a fire at somewhere – a hospital? Perhaps a factory, where they make something that gives off toxic gasses when it burns? That sounds like a typical emergency situation in a superhero campaign – and nary a villain in sight. Or is there? What caused the problem at the power station? Or maybe a supervillain is trapped on the freeway and beginning to lose it at his inability to escape? or maybe a villain turns up to help – a temporary suspension of hostilities? There are a lot of different directions in which you could take this situation, but they are all interesting, and they all feel “real”.

Of course, that example’s not very relevant to a fantasy game. So here’s another: There’s an attempted assassination of the ruler of the city. That’s problem number 1. The city is sealed until the assassins are found and captured; this traps a wizard whose grand creation, a proto-dragon, is about to hatch; since this magic is forbidden by someone – a guild, the church, the law, whatever – while he needed the resources of the city to complete his creation, he wanted to be a long way away before it came to anyone’s notice. Now, his proto-dragon is about to hatch and fast-mature in the docks region – that’s problem number two. Problem number three could be a firestorm initiated by the proto-dragon (perhaps through contact with someone smuggling alcohol), or it could be someone trying to take advantage of the fact that the City Watch are all busy searching for the Assassins and not guarding the treasury, or perhaps the proto-dragon hatches in the sewers (where the mage was hiding), blocking them with rubble and debris, or perhaps this is all happening in a city under enemy control at the same time as the PCs are attempting to scout it out, threatening to disrupt their mission. Or perhaps a panicked crowd, already nervous because the watch is asking questions in a very determined manner, and because of the rumors of the assassination, will panic and become a mob, or overrun the market district setting fire to a silk weaver (silk gives off cyanide when it burns, I believe). Whatever you choose, lots of merriment is assured!

The Third Point Of Relevance: Rules for technology

The computers in original Traveller were laughable at any time other than when the game was published. A piece of hardware the size of a biggish room which could handle – at most – six functions at a time?

The pace of computer hardware development has continually outstripped attempts to forecast it. This failure is second only to the complete and utter failure to predict the impact that it would have on society, and the shape it would have. The history of the personal computer, in particular, is one of finding a solution to impossible problems that then becomes a compromise or a bottleneck to the next generation of hardware. It’s frankly a miracle, and a testament to the ingenuity of many hundreds of engineers and software developers that they work as well as they do. To put it into perspective: Any Windows-XP capable computer is on a par with, if not superior to, the original Cray Supercomputer, in most if not all vital respects.

One of their great strengths is that no two are exactly the same. No-one else on the planet is likely to have the particular hardware and software requirements that I do, or to have selected the same solutions to those problems, or to have their system settings exactly the same as I do. No matter how identical two computers might be from the time they are delivered by a bespoke supplier, as soon as a user starts configuring it to his particular needs, it begins to become unique. Every piece of software installed adds to the number of points of distinction.

The current trend in computers is away from the infinitely-customizable desktop option to a more one-size-fits-all – which means, in the eyes of a lot of people, that it tries to be a master of all things and is inherently compromised in all of them. The results might – arguably – be considered more user-friendly, or more easily-supported; I can believe the latter, I don’t believe the former. But they are equally inconvenient for everyone. I think I’ve mentioned in passing before that I hate push technology, I hate software that decides to update itself and alters what it does and how it does it; when it comes to my computer, I’m a control freak. I want reliability, and beyond that, leave me alone!

Pity the poor RPG designer who has to accommodate into his rules systems the capabilities of computers. Performance has changed so exponentially that it’s almost impossible to do so with anything approaching game balance or realism. I know – I’ve tried.

Of course, my players will tell anyone who cares to listen that I’m handicapped when it comes to doing so – I know too much about the subject, and have a tendency to incorporate too much of that knowledge into what should be an abstract collection of game mechanics for anything approaching playability.

I once created a set of rules for computers that more-or-less accurately modeled the limitations of every model from the Vic-20 to a modern networked server farm and into the future. It was 38 pages long and completely unplayable – though it made perfect sense in each particular. If you wanted to over-clock the CPU, these rules covered it. If you wanted to hack into Midwestern Power And Light, these rules covered the process – and the difficulties that you would face, and the likelyhood of detection. More importantly, if you wanted a computer to run an office block, or a starship, or whatever, it correctly simulated that. It even had rules for writing your own software!

One of the most important sections within those rules dealt with the domino effects of failures in some minor part of the system. You see, there are three kinds of failures within a computer system:

• Catastrophic,
• Incremental, and
• Impairing.

A catastrophic failure means that the machine dies suddenly and completely. I’ve had a hard disk fail catastrophically; I’ve had several power supplies go bang; I’ve had a motherboard burn out, and a CPU fry. Until the problem is resolved, these failures turn the machine into an expensive doorstop.

Less severe are Incremental failures. These are problems which start minor and just keep getting worse and worse. These are rarely hardware related, though they can be; I’ve had one hard disk that would only work when the temperature was below a certain temperature, and another that would only work above a certain temperature, for example. I’ve had a graphics card that worked fine until it overheated, corrupting the display completely; the only solution was to turn the computer off and let it cool down. I’ve had a printer that only worked when the winds were blowing in the right direction, or so it seemed; at other times, it might get part-way through a print job and just freeze up, or it might not start at all. I’ve had a modem that only worked when the humidity wasn’t too high. Electrical failures in something as complex as a computer system can be extremely subtle, and are attributable to a component that is slowly drifting out of its tolerance range. But, more commonly, this is an operating system problem – you have a systems crash caused by anything from the phase of the moon on down, which corrupts part of the system files, which makes it more likely that you will experience a subsequent computer crash. These are most often repaired by reinstalling the operating system – which is a colossal pain in the neck, but better than the alternative. In my Windows 98 days, I became so proficient at it that I could completely rebuild my operating system in an hour or two, including reinstalling all the key pieces of software.

Is it possible that Operating System corruption is responsible for my current woes? Entirely. It might be a coincidence, but the troubles all started with a failed update to Adobe Acrobat; I was forced to use system restore to get the machine functional again. And then discovered that all sorts of services had failed to start properly. I solved the immediate problem, but it’s possible that some long-term damage was done somewhere, which has started me down a slippery slope.

If the Windows installation CD could see the hard disk on which Windows was installed, I would probably have reinstalled it by now in an attempt to cure my headaches. It can’t. When I installed my old disk drives, with all my old data, into the current computer, I may have altered the configuration of the hardware; I simply don’t remember now. But I have discovered that windows can read that CD from within windows itself – so drastic action may yet be attempted. But if it doesn’t work, I’m up the creek without a paddle, at least until I have some alternative solution on the horizon.

The third type of failure is one where some component or piece of software fails catastrophically without completely ruining the system. I’ve had a CD-ROM shatter explosively, destroying the drive – but doing no damage to the rest of the system (this was a week before Mythbusters ‘proved’ this would never happen. Oh, well). I’ve had hard disks fail that weren’t critical to the system’s operation. I’ve had monitors burn out – but as soon as another was plugged in, everything worked fine.

These days, most RPGs seem to expect that computers will work flawlessly, if operated correctly. On the premise that computers performing a critical function are under greater load when executing that function, once again we have a situation in which a catastrophic failure – even only a momentary one – is more likely to happen at the worst possible time – I always check when the PCs are relying on a computer to do something vital. And I always have some novel and interesting failure mode in mind for the next failure. I’d tell you what the next one that I have in mind for my PCs in the Zenith-3 campaign is, but then I couldn’t use it – and it’s too much fun to waste!

I’m still searching for a set of computer rules that will be sufficiently abstract to be playable and yet sufficiently respectful of the limitations of the technology, especially when applied to historical models, to be reasonably accurate. I had the glimmerings of a possible approach way back in 2004, but I’ve never had the chance to properly develop it. It was for this reason that I was particularly interested in the computer/hacking rules when I was offered a guest article from one of the developers of the Interface Zero 2.0 RPG as a means of promoting their Kickstarter campaign, which was more wildly successful than I think anyone expected, falling just a few hundred dollars short of their ultimate stretch goal.

Of course, the same is true of almost any form of advanced technology, most of which have computer support anyway. The modern car has more processing power devoted to its Electronic Fuel Injection system than was on the Apollo spacecraft. So does a typical pocket calculator – even one that only has the basic numeric functions. The next time your PCs rely on a piece of technology, contemplate the chances that it might fail them, and if so, in which of the three modes. It might be good for nothing more than heightening the drama of the moment, or it might be significant in its own right as a plot development.

The Final Point Of Relevance: Game Rules in general

Of course, if we’re talking about complex systems and the ways in which they can fail, we have to at least spare a thought or two for probably the most complex system involved in an RPG: the rules themselves. These are just as prone to failure as any other complex system, and like the electricity grid, more prone to experiencing a failure when placed under the greatest stress. Critical moments, when life or death, or success or failure, hang in the balance. These errors can be minor, sometimes not even noticed; or they can be degenerative, like introducing an ad-hoc ruling that comes back to bite the GM months or years later, and all they can say is that it seemed like a good idea at the time; or they can be catastrophic, such as when a situation arises that the rules don’t deal with at all, or that they deal with – like my computer rules – in completely unplayable fashion.

When this happens – and we will all experience it at some point – remember that the objective is for everyone to have fun. Everything else should be sacrificed to this end, if necessary.

If the GM is in possession of key relevant facts that the players can’t be told for the sake of that overriding principle – no other reason is sufficient for keeping those facts secret under the circumstances of catastrophic rules failure – then he may have to make a ruling according to his own best judgment. That’s his job as the GM. The rest of the time, in the event of catastrophic rules failure, consult the players. The complete failure of the game is no fun for anyone. And if in doubt, let the players succeed at whatever they were trying to do – if the alternative is cataclysmic game failure.

We all like to push the boundaries of the rules – that’s where the most fun is there to be had. Whenever you adjudicate a rules question, consider for a moment the possibility that the decision you are about to make could lead to a failure of the rules system. Anticipate it and don’t be taken by surprise.

My computer is experiencing intermittent hardware failures. It’s been doing that for a while now, but it seems to be a bit more serious about it this time – to the point where I’m never sure, from one day to the next, whether it will even boot up, or – if it does – how long it will function for before the eventual crash. Some days it works like a swiss watch, and other days it’s a sundial at night in a dark, sealed, cavern.

It’s my impression that I have two independant hardware problems: one that functions when the machine is too hot (CPU overheating, or maybe it’s the 3D graphics card) and one that functions when the primary disk drive is too cold (won’t read from the hard disk). Annoyingly, of course, it’s the newest drive that’s causing all the trouble – my old IDE drives just keep ticking over.

Unfortunately, my present financial position will make it difficult to get replacement parts until February or March at the earliest, as I have to commit funds to some minor surgery early in 2014. So I have to struggle on with the failing equipment.

If, perchance, no article gets posted here on time or at all over the next few weeks, that’s the reason.

“Negative Space” sounds like the sort of thing that pretentious art critics fill the air with when they have nothing of substance to contribute. It’s not some antimatter or “mirror, mirror” universe, either – though it can be either or both those things if you want. It may come as some surprise to those with little or not experience in art extending beyond an “I like/don’t like it” that Negative Space is actually something rather important.

Negative Space – and this is my personal definition, and not something to write on an art or design exam – is space without details or specifics that surrounds the focus of attention and provides a strong contrast with that focus. Despite the fact that it contains little or nothing, Negative Space can be incredibly important and can serve a number of useful functions:

• It can serve as a visual barrier, preventing attention from straying away from the desired focus of the composition;
• It usually heightens the importance of the desired focus;
• It can be used subtly to provide context without distracting specifics;
• It can contain a second image relevant to the first;
• It separates important elements and prevents them from ‘running into each other’; and, finally,
• It provides an empty space that the viewer fills in subconsciously, giving the actual focus greater substance and substantiality.

I’m going to take a very brief look at how Negative Space achieves or performs these functions – trust me, it will be useful later in the article.

Visual Barrier

It’s natural for the human eye and mind to follow the edge of an object within an artwork rather than launching it’s focus of attention into an empty space. It’s natural for us to pay attention to anything that is sharp and focused and more or less ignore anything that is blurred and fuzzy – something photographers and movie directors have been exploiting for a century or more. It’s present in advertising as well – quite often company logos will appear in greater focus on a background image that has been blurred ever so slightly just to tell the mind what to pay attention to. In both cases, the negative space, the background, is serving to contain the attention of the viewer. It takes a deliberate effort to shift that focus away from wherever it is supposed to go.

This effect also shows up in all sorts of other ways. It’s the product of evolution, a pro-survival trick – focus the attention on what matters and ignore the rest. There is a famous psychology stunt designed to test the value of witness statements in a general sense: Get a bunch of people all dressed in a similar way and get them to dance around on stage, and give the audience some task that will require them to focus on those performers, such as counting how many of them there are. Most observers doing so – nine out of ten of them – will fail to notice another person in a gorilla costume quite openly walking across the stage in the background. That’s how powerful negative space can be as a barrier.

Heightened Focus

In both art and survival, the payoff comes in the form of greater attention being paid to those things deemed important. And yet, that greater attention can be strangely myopic as well – if people do something attention-getting and unexpected, more attention will be paid to their actions and less to what they actually looked like, something else that contaminates witness statements all the time. Height, weight, color of clothing, color of hair, even who did what to whom, and in what order – these can all go by the wayside.

Magicians use this all the time to misdirect audience attention – they will get people watching something, like what one hand is doing, and not paying attention to what the other is up to.

Providing Context

Negative space doesn’t have to be empty, it just has to be devoid of details that grab the intention. Color and impressions of space or movement can all be inserted into the negative space and used to provide context. Patterns and effects are more attention-getting, and so are harder to use in this way, but tiling of a motif serves the same purpose. In July of last year, I used the image to the right to illustrate an article. The flea is intentionally attention-getting, to the point that looking closely at it reduces the background to a generic patterned backdrop. Only when you focus on the background does the fact that it comprises silhouettes of camels become apparent. It took me more than a dozen attempts to create this image, because I wanted to make the camels more visually apparent and they kept getting lost in the white space – in the end, I had to make them larger and somewhat visually distorted, and flip the image of the flea left-to-right, to give people a chance to see the camels.

Some people will see the camels more readily than others. There’s a natural human variation. It will also vary with circumstances and a number of other factors – there are times when I don’t see the camels at first, and I know they are there.

It’s even possible to conceal an entire second image in the negative space – focus on it, and what used to be the positive space becomes the negative space of this new image. Consider the example of Rubin’s Vase, where the negative space forms the image of two men facing each other.

Element Separation

Comic books are sometimes described as “sequential art that tells a story”. The typical page from a comic raises the use of negative space to a high art – not only is negative space used within each panel, but the gutters between panels form a “higher order” of negative space that separates the two images in time – because people can only pay attention to one of the images at a time – and space. You read one panel and then move on to the next, creating a mental impression that the events depicted in the second occur after the events in the first.

Some people have trouble reading Japanese Manga because the pages are printed in reverse order to what Western eyes are used to. You start at the “last page” and work your way forwards. The panels flow from right to left, as well. I’m quite sure that it is just as difficult for Japanese readers to enjoy American comics, even assuming no language difficulties.

One issue of a comic named Alpha Flight featured a battle between two white characters (and I don’t mean Caucasian) fighting in a snowstorm. Almost the entire story was told through the shape of the panels alone – in other words, through manipulating the negative space.

These are all extreme examples. In more traditional art, such as objects on a table, the negative space helps to separate the objects.

Tabula Rasa

Human minds aren’t really equipped to deal with empty space. When we encounter it, our minds try and interpret the space as containing something. Some optical illusions rely on this to shape part of the negative space to such a degree of success that we can see something that just isn’t there, such as is the case in the Kanizsa Triangle (shown left), created by Italian psychologist and artist Gaetano Kanizsa in the 1970s. The mind creates an object – a white triangle, point-down – out of the negative space to ‘explain’ what it perceives as interruptions of the other parts of the image. In other words, it separates the negative space into two planes, one triangle-shaped and in front of everything else, and one flat and behind everything else. In fact, there is no white triangle, but this nonexistent element of the picture becomes the dominant focus of attention as soon as it appears.

The mind extrapolates from cues within the event or scene to “fill in the blanks” – which are then taken as actual fact even if they contradict what is actually seen. This effect also manifests in witness statements – people naturally try to place the event they have seen into a context, and will actually (entirely unwittingly) modify their recollection of events to conform to that context. If someone else strongly suggests an alternative context that makes more sense to the subject, they will “rewrite history” in their mind to contain supporting details. The only hope an investigator has of finding out what actually took place from eyewitness testimony alone is to get those statements as soon as possible after the event, having kept the witnesses isolated from anyone and everyone else in the meantime. The Wikipedia article on Eyewitness Testimony makes fascinating reading for anyone unfamiliar with recent developments on the subject.

Implanting subtle cues of any sort into the negative space helps give that space a context, a starting point, and the mind goes on to fill in the blanks to incorporate that context into the focus of the image.

The Manipulation of Negative Space

There is always going to be negative space surrounding any image or perception. This negative space can be manipulated, if the artist is smart enough to do so, to enhance and compliment the focus of attention, and to manipulate the impressions received of that focus of attention.

Expanding the concept

Why is such a useful tool not recognized and employed in other creative fields and applications? What could we (as GMs) do with it if we adapted it for such use? And wait a minute – “Less Is More” – isn’t it already there, under a different name? And how does Negative Space relate to “White Space”?

Less-is-more vs Negative Space

To some extent, the principle of “less is more” is an attempt to focus the attention on the essential elements of whatever is being perceived, whether that be in narration, description, or visually by deliberately omitting anything that is not relevant. The assumption is that the details that are actually conveyed become stronger impressions of the scene when the reader/viewer does not have his attention distracted by a flood of irrelevant information. This can be viewed as an attempt to create negative space within the frame of reference.

The flaw with this approach is that it explicitly defines the resulting negative space as “everything that is not essential”; this can be coped with reasonably well when we’re talking about a modern setting with a contemporary world, but begins to fall apart quickly when the fantastic enters the setting, although perhaps the principle can still apply if the definition of “essential” is expanded. In my article on Mystery Plotlines in RPGs, The Butler Did It, about half-way through the article I quite selected passages from Isaac Asimov’s foreword to Asimov’s Mysteries in which he discusses the union of Mysteries and Science Fiction, and the perceived impossibility of uniting the genres – a perception that he resolved by specifically expanding the definition of “essential”. And, to keep from overwhelming the reader at the key point of the story, he shifts as much as possible of the additional “essential” information elsewhere within the story. After all, it may be essential that the reader has this information, it is not essential that they be distracted with it when there are other things that they should be focusing on. Context is therefore defined as both negative space to the description of events and essential nevertheless.

By explicitly defining the negative space as “everything that is not essential”, though, we forego the capacity to manipulate that negative space. We let its shape be more-or-less accidental and incidental, rather than treating it as a deliberately manipulable element. Negative Space in design and in art is never accidental and never incidental – not in the hands of any serious artist, at least – so “Less Is More” is a less-refined principle than the concept of a deliberately-structured Negative Space analogue.

White Space vs Negative Space

I’ve seen the same thing happen in Magazine layout, which is where the term “white space” originates. The concept that the gutters between columns and at the edges of a page where capable of more than simply defining the boundaries of the columns began to seep into the field in the late 70s and early 80s. In fact, it could be employed to create shapes out of white space was radical and innovative at the time.

The concept quickly evolved to integrate illustration, completing the transition in concept from “white space” (where there is no visual content) to “negative space” (where there is no text), by placing the artwork wholly or in selected parts within that negative space in more creative ways than simply having text wrap around it in a box. This was a consequence of the introduction of elements of Graphic Design into the world of Page Layouts in previous decades. “Time”, “PC World”, and “Seventeen” (to name three magazines completely at random) all look different; they employ different fonts, different layouts, and have different objectives.

Sometimes these layouts became artistic statements in and of themselves; sometimes they went too far and became more important than the substance of the article they were intended to support and enhance. Over time, these excesses have been recognized and pared back to more functional designs.

Ultimately, White Space is concerned principally with the positioning of content elements with respect to each other and the page boundaries; employing it simply to generate the capacity to incorporate an additional featured content element is as far as it goes. Like “Less Is More”, it’s a forerunner of the actual principle, but is one which is further along the path to a full realization of the potential of Negative Space within the select field of page layout and typography.

It can also be said that progress along that path was arrested over the last two decades, as the designers began to grapple with the internet and web page layout and the ever-changing potentials technology has provided for dynamic designs. The best designers have migrated into this field, and technological improvements have continually raised the bar of what is possible to keep them there. It will be a decade or more, in my opinion, before design catches up with the capabilities we already have – assuming (hah!) that the technology doesn’t change again in the meantime.

Negative Space in RPGs

So, since Negative space is neither “Less Is More” nor “White Space” – both principles that have been considered and discussed elsewhere in terms of RPGs – for example, this article on game prep at Stuffer Shack – it is worth exploring just how the principles of Negative Space can be incorporated into various elements of the RPG hobby beyond mere page design, to the benefit of both individual games and the hobby as a whole.

There are eight aspects of RPGs that come to mind.

• Negative Space In Narrative
• Negative Space In Descriptions
• Negative Space In Characterization
• Negative Space In Maps
• Negative Space In Adventures
• Negative Space In NPCs
• Negative Space In Rules
• Negative Space In Campaign Planning

It was somewhat surprising, when I started thinking about each of these, that to some extent Campaign Mastery had already started this exploration, though without any overall direction. I feel like I have discovered a new unifying principle that amounts to a paradigm shift in my perceptions, and have the impression that I will be exploring the nuances and implications for a very long time to come – and that I will never look at some aspects of the hobby in quite the same way again.

Of course, that doesn’t do our readers much good without some specifics, so let’s look at each of these. There may be more applications of the principle in each of these fields, and some of them may not be as groundbreaking as others, but this will at least provide a starting point.

Negative Space In Narrative

In narrative terms, Negative Space is about adopting a layered standard of information detail. We can keep the basic principle of “Less Is More”, but refine it to encompass a broader interpretation of ‘essential’, and differentiating between different strata of essentials, to which different standards of detail apply. This transforms the “negative space” from the concept of leaving out everything that is not immediately essential into the concept of providing information which fills, and employs, that negative space so as to manipulate the context of the “essential” that is provided in full detail.

The result is a pyramid structure consisting of at least three layers, possibly four, five, or six:

1. The uppermost level contains the immediate essentials, less anything that is not immediately obvious to the characters. This is the peak of the pyramid, the part that is most sharply defined.
2. The second layer contains conditional information – narrative detailing facts that are essentials, but that may not be immediately obvious, and hence will only be detailed under certain conditions (the PC making the right skill check, for example, or asking the right question). Before then, it will only be hinted at – but it should be hinted at, so that players will know that there is more information available which may be relevant.
3. In the third layer we have contextual information. This should already have been provided to the players, so all that is needed here is a general reminder that associates that information with the narrative being delivered.
4. An optional fourth layer provides psychological, magical, scientific, spiritual, or other specialist context or perspective to those of the appropriate skillset or experience. To avoid forcing the player into adopting a position predetermined by the GM, effectively negating player free will, this should be kept broad and general, leaving it to the player to decide how this perspective or context will influence their specific interpretation of the narrative. The player can always ask more specific questions, which may or may not require die rolls / skill checks. Because this is character-specific context, it is often better delivered by note, permitting it to influence the character’s roleplay without explanation to those who do not share this perspective. This practice makes this layer character-enhancing rather than character-detracting.
5. The fifth layer is also optional, and exists to provide metaphysical, philosophical, and moral context or perspective that only applies to one specific race or species. This information should already be known to the player (or at least available to them), so only general reference is required concerning the relevance. Like material from the fourth layer, this is often better passed on by note, though there may be times when it is better to actually take the player aside and discuss the specifics with them. It is rare for skill rolls to be required to access this additional information, which is why it forms a distinct stratum from the fourth layer.
6. Finally, a further optional layer contains metaphysical, philosophical, and moral context or perspective that is generally available or applicable, or which the majority of players may assume is generally applicable. Once again, this should be broad and general, if present at all, so that while players can assess the stakes and the context, the choice of how the act or react to it is left to them. This information may be overruled in specific individuals by content from the fourth or fifth layers.

It should also be noted that each piece of conditional information may also have associated elements within the fourth, fifth or sixth layers.

I tried to represent all this in a diagram, but it wasn’t as clear as the text explanation, as you can see to the above right. But the general principle should be clear from the text.

Negative Space In Descriptions

A similar approach applies to creating negative space in descriptions: decide what’s important to be specific about, what’s important to touch on in context or in respect of specialist knowledge, and what’s important to touch in with respect to past events or locations within the campaign. In particular, any changes to the setting since the last time the characters were here should be at least mentioned in passing, even if they aren’t immediately relevant, because they convey the impression of a dynamic, changing, world. Finally, and analogous to the deeper layers described above is anything needed to establish the mood and tone of the circumstances under which the description is being delivered.

There is always debate about whether the mood & tone information needs to come first or should be the last thing mentioned. The latter ensures that it is the foremost thing in the player’s minds, the former enables it to color the description. My preference is to try to achieve both – use general terms at the start, and provide one or two contributing specifics at the end of the description. But that won’t always work. And anything that you want the characters to specifically act or react to, like a charging mercenary, should be mentioned both early and in more detail at the end.

Still more importantly, the witness behavior described earlier should be taken into account. If there’s a charging mercenary, characters will be less prone to note details of the background until the immediate threat is resolved. It’s important to then provide the missing description, usually with an opening phrase along the lines of “only now do you notice…”

Some GMs require the players to make some sort of perception roll at the start and use those as a guideline to how much of the background detail should be included, but there are so many combinations of circumstance and subtleties of obviousness that no hard and fast rules can really be provided.

Negative Space In Characterization

The best way to provide negative space in terms of characterization is by abstracting qualities rather than delving into specifics. Don’t tell people about the personality, find a way for the character to reveal his personality through speech and actions. I’ve discussed this in detail in a past article, Look Beyond The Box, without realizing that this was in fact incorporating and using Negative Space in the characterization – but it is. The more broadly you can define the characterization, the more you can employ it to reflect other aspects of the character when those questions come up; and by using them as a starting point, or character seed, you ensure a consistent characterization even in aspects of the character that weren’t defined at the time.

Combining this principle with the techniques offered in The 3-minute (or less) NPC, which relies on building Negative Space into a character in a selective and controlled (and hence manipulable) fashion, and you are well-served.

Negative Space In Maps

Former site co-owner Johnn Four has actually addressed this specific subject, in the third entry within his series, “Maps Have Three Parts”, or at least started to look at the topic.

Old-time maps simply left what they didn’t know, blank, at least they did if they were intended to have practical value. Some maps may have been drawn speculating on features that were not known to exist. I have employed the same principle many, many times in my games. I have covered part of the map with post-its, for example, and removed them one at a time when the PCs reached an appropriate area. On another occasion, I printed one map with holes that matched the locations of selected rooms and corridors on the second map; the latter was given to the PCs, and the second glued on top in panels containing individual rooms and corridors. On still other occasions I’ve created a narrative in advance and drawn the map to contain it as the PCs discovered it. On one occasion, a map was drawn and covered in clear contact plastic, and furnishings cut out from cardboard and blue-tacked to that map – enabling tables to be knocked over and chairs to be broken during the barroom brawl that we knew was coming (actually, it was a high-end restaurant similar to that seen in the opening of the second Indiana Jones movie, but you get the idea). I will usually draw my terrain maps electronically, then mask off the parts that are unexplored or unknown using a mask contained on a separate layer; this enables me to apply transparency selectively to the mask. In my fantasy campaigns, any given geographic feature shown that the PCs have not been to in the past is 2d4+d5-3 2km hexes away from where it is shown, in a random (d36 times 10) direction – or some similar approach is employed – because aerial surveys and precise measurements over such distances were simply not available. I have even generated a map where each feature was an “object” in its own right so that I could move them around – then gave the PCs three slightly-contradictory versions of the map to work from.

Negative Space contains the unknown, and provides room for errors in the making of the maps.

One final tip: aside from space filled with wall, in a structure like a castle, there are no negative spaces – the negative spaces that surround a given room are all other rooms or corridors. Plan and draw your map accordingly.

I once created a castle map, cut out each room and corridor, and interposed a minimum one-square gap between the pieces. I filled most of the resulting wall space in, extending the corridors as necessary – but used some of the gaps for secret tunnels.

Another time, I created a maze with very thick walls – then subdivided the space within the maze into rooms. Throw in a couple of secret passages through parts of the maze (which had been drawn in at random during the maze construction) and hey presto – a wonderfully confounding and confusing complex!

These are just some of the many things that can be done with negative space in maps.

Oh, all right – just one more. Create a map electronically, leaving empty (transparent) spaces between terrain features. Create a couple of other maps electronically with other terrain features. Then place the first map over the top of the second, and over the third, and over the fourth, and so on. The result is a map with a few fixed features (from the first map) and morphing or unstable terrain in between them. This trick works well for doing different seasons – Winter, spring, and summer/autumn are the three I normally work with, because these can have very different water flows. But it also works when two planes of existence are colliding :)

Negative Space In Adventures

Every adventure needs to have negative space, for the PCs to fill. What you need to know are who the key NPCs are, what they are trying to accomplish, how they are trying to achieve this, and how those factors are going to intersect with the PCs lives – everything else should start out as negative space, to be filled in as necessary.

Practicality and the exigencies of good play may require some of those spaces to be populated with narrative or minor encounters in advance, but these should always be selective and prepared on-spec – never certain to actually be used. Don’t worry, if the villain has a good speech in the current adventure that he never gets to give, you can always recycle it at some future point for some other villain.

Each time you start working on an encounter, or a description, or a scene within an adventure, you should always ask yourself how much detail you need to prep in advance – and what you can get away with making up on the spot, or in between adventures when the characters head in an unexpected direction. Some people like to describe this as giving the players as much room to maneuver as possible; I like to think of it in terms of giving them enough rope to hang themselves :)

Negative Space In NPCs

Wait, we’ve already covered this, haven’t we?

Not completely. I’ve talked about Negative Space in characterization; but this is more about which NPCs you need to prep in advance. The vague and abstract you can make these until you need them, the more time you have to devote to other things – and the more latitude you have when you do need to actually specify them in detail.

One of my early AD&D campaigns featured a monarch who was small, and mousy, and nervous, and cowardly, and a little inept in many ways (while very astute in others). He was served by a hulking brick of a fighter, 6’7″ tall, four feet across the shoulders, with a broadaxe almost as wide as he was. Whenever the monarch had to appear in public, he dressed up as a manservant and dressed the fighter up as “the King”. This arrangement gave the pair the best of both worlds. (Everything worked out fine until the warrior got himself killed in a drunken brawl with a storm giant in a tavern – then the PCs had to be called in in a hurry to scare up a replacement or resurrect the old fake). To anyone from outside the Kingdom, it was protected and ruled by a mighty warrior who thought with his biceps – but was gifted with the occasional canny insight. Anyone acting on this perception were behind the eight-ball even before setting foot in the Kingdom, because they seriously underestimated the monarch who actually ruled there. (I got the idea from The Wizard Of Oz).

When characters are just starting out, they need to know the local monarch’s reputation – which may have absolutely nothing to do with the real monarch. Apply this principle to every NPC in the campaign, and save yourself a LOT of work – while giving yourself a lot more room to move.

Negative Space In Rules

I can hear some people already: “Deliberately leaving things out of the rules? What are you, nuts?”

And yet, I’ve already hinted at this principle in Top-Down Plug-in Game Design: The Perfect Recipe?, in which I advocated a modular game design with a central framework. Leave out that magic system – then offer several alternatives. Leave out the combat system – then offer a couple of variations with different levels of detail. Leave out the skills system – then offer three or four variations with different levels of detail and different approaches – one or two of which have a matching xp system, replacing that module of the rules. All you need to do is specify in advance how these subsystems are going to connect with each other.

Negative Space In Campaign Planning

Every campaign needs negative space. This is space in which events and encounters are intended simply to establish the general framework and context of the campaign, in which dya-to-day normality is presented to the players and the foundations – technological, spiritual, theological, psychological, and metaphysical – are explained and demonstrated to the players. NPCs who are going to be important get introduced, initial relationships established, and the pieces of the jigsaw layed out ready for assembly into the “real” story.

This takes the principles explained in the discussion of sci-fi mysteries and expands them to cover the entire campaign.

Right now, in the Zenith-3 campaign, the players are in the early stages of Adventure number 7, “Mixed Emotions”. This adventure will carry them through to the conclusion of the first page of the multipage campaign plan. How many significant events have their been in the campaign so far, and how much is negative space? Answer: Including the parts of this adventure that have not yet been played, there have been exactly nine important developments. Two of those were the introduction of new team members. A third was the establishment of their new base of operations and the politics that come with it and with their new role. A fourth was a still-unidentified group who set out to test the new arrivals. Fifth was the establishment of a non-aggression pact with a villain named Voodoo Willy, who always makes sure he’s more valuable to the PCs where he is and doing what he does than he would be if they followed their instincts and locked him up. Sixth was the obtaining and emplacement of Mana storage devices throughout the base of operations. Seventh was the restoration of the parent team’s space-going base of operations. Eigth was the development of a commercially available psionic shield. And ninth has been a redefinition of the relationship between the parent group and the PCs that gives them a great deal more liberty – and a great deal more responsibility. Everything else has been negative space, laying groundwork for the future, or simply exploring the repercussions of the PCs current situation. As the campaign proceeds, the pace of significant events will increase; we’re still in its early days.

The same is true of my Shards Of Divinity campaign, where there have been a few significant events, but mostly there have been excuses provided to get the PCs to wander about, exploring their environment.

Where To From Here?

So far, I don’t think I’ve done more than scratch the surface of the principle of Negative Space applied to RPGs, but I’ve presented as many specifics as have come to mind thus far in this article. At this point, the principle is more of a perceptual shift, changing the way I think about everything that a GM does and has to do; that altered perception has not yet had time to manifest into practical applications of the principle. Right now, all I can do is bear it in mind as I go about the multitude of tasks involved in GMing and see what develops…

Something got me thinking the other day about the villains trilogy that I wrote last year – Part 1 – The Mastermind, Part 2 – The Combat Monster, and Part 3 – the Character Villain and about something that wasn’t included. What makes the scariest villain?

Beginning at the Beginning: What is Fear?

Wikipedia has a reasonable definition of Fear that makes a good starting point. A bit of rephrasing, paraphrasing, and disassembly and recombination of that foundation material gives me the following:

Fear is an emotional reaction to an acute and immediate sense of danger or threat which causes instinct to override rational control of actions, or to the anticipation of such acute and immediate dangers or threats.

In humans, the instincts are generally fight or flight. There is a clear evolutionary advantage to such an override of the higher functions – the hesitation and indecisiveness that result from taking the time for complex analysis can get you killed in a dangerous situation.

It’s somewhat off-topic, but a large part of military training is aimed at replacing those instinctive responses with a trained and conditioned response which doesn’t automatically exclude rational control. Clearly, if the survival of the soldier is deemed less important than the survival of the species, or the nation, or the perpetuation of their national values and/or agenda, the basic instinct is unsuitable, simply because it places the welfare of the individual ahead of the welfare of the social collective. That’s why descriptions of Military Training such as the first half of Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (the book, not the movie) often read like brainwashing. Many of the terms used to describe the process are clearly analogous – compare “Breaking them” to “Tearing them down and rebuilding them as [Soldiers]”.

It is for these reasons that I have long advocated that soldiers leaving the service should receive mandatory “re-entry training”; the instincts that have been built into their personalities, and the acts they have witnessed, give them a set of automatic responses that can impair a successful reintegration with general society. They often have trouble fitting into a civilian life as a result. It’s not enough that we treat these problems when they arise; sometimes, that’s too late. Whether we agree with the politics that led them to be deployed, or with the missions that they were tasked to undertake, is irrelevant; they have risked their lives to protect and serve their nation, and deserve better preparation for life outside the military than that.

Almost as far off-topic: This is also the foundation of my personal pet theory as to why the ordinary German Citizen embraced Nazism in the years prior to and during World War II. The combination of the humiliation visited on them by the peace terms at the end of WWI and the Great Depression did the “breaking” part of the brainwashing process; All Hitler had to do was offer a half-convincing way out of this corner. When this sort of humiliation is inflicted by a torturer, the way out suggested by the torturer is for the victim to offer something to appease the torturer – information, conversion, whatever. Cults use the same basic processes to brainwash recruits. WWII Germany was the world’s largest cult (with the possible exception of the Communist Bloc), and that’s why good and honest citizens found themselves approving of and supporting the acts of barbarism that were inflicted by the Nazis, who redefined humanity to exclude not only anyone who was non-Aryan but anyone who opposed the state, making it possible to treat people as sub-human.

Fear and the Mastermind

While a Mastermind may employ fear as a stimulus, and may even be driven by Fear themselves, their actions are generally not going to induce fear themselves. They are too psychological, too intellectual, too philosophically-oriented. Their plans may, by virtue of their projected consequences, invoke a form of intellectual pseudo-fear, but this apprehension is never going to come close to causing “instinct to override rational control of actions”. No matter how good an opponent might be, and how inevitable a humiliating defeat may be, a chess game is never going to invoke fear in and of itself. To introduce fear to such an equation requires the attachment of some further threat to the progress, or outcome, of the game.

Fear and the Combat Monster

It might seem, then, that a Combat Monster, who poses a direct and physical threat to the welfare and survival of the character, is more prone to induce fear – and yet it never works out that way, for some reason. The character may be intimidated, may be presented with clear evidence that their opponent is superior, but the players – and the GM – clearly expect the characters to behave as soldiers, and engage the enemy – or make a tactical withdrawal until they can manufacture circumstances or strategy to equalize the odds in battle. No matter how threatening the Combat Monster may be to a character, the character sheet keeps any fear at arm’s length.

This is exactly the way things should be. The Mastermind may pose an intellectual challenge, and the Combat Monster a tactical challenge, but these are games for heroic actions on the part of the characters, and introducing genuine fear into the equation is usually counterproductive to the game – the objective of which is for everyone to have fun. Vicarious thrills, yes; Fear, no.

Fear and the Character Villain

Which leaves the character villain as the only archetype which should be capable of inspiring genuine fear. Because of the insulation between player and character provided by the character sheet, this will still be a watered-down, relatively tame form of fear – and once again, this is exactly as it should be. As a GM, you don’t want your players to be scared into inaction – or into inappropriate real-life action. You need to keep the fear at arm’s-length while still permitting the player the vicarious thrills involved.

Not all character villains can, or should, achieve this. A character villain is one whose personality is the dominant factor in their makeup, and the reactions to that personality can be anything from laughter to empathy to horror – or fear. So what we are talking about is a specific subtype of the character villain.

What sort of character could be so terrifying as to induce fear, not only in the character, but in the player? We’ll get back to that.

The Attributes Of Fear

There are various techniques that the GM can employ, taken directly from the Horror Movie playbook, that can be employed to induce a vicarious form of fear in the players. It’s worth looking briefly at these.

The Building Of Suspense

Prior to a manifestation of fear, you need to prepare the ground with a buildup of suspense. Suspense derives from the absence of expected activity. In a horror movie, you show the villain, or his shadow, or whatever, in proximity to the characters with whom the audience are identifying without those characters being aware that he’s there. Atmosphere and tone contribute.

I found two excellent articles on Suspense in writing that apply to RPGs as much as to any other medium: 6 Secrets To Creating And Sustaining Suspense from Writer’s Digest, and 41 Ways To Create And Heighten Suspense by Ian Irvine. I didn’t have to look very hard; this is both a common topic of discussion amongst writers and something that most would-be writers know that they need to learn.

One of the big tips that neither mention is to focus on individual micro-actions that would normally go unremarked. Describe each step that characters take, one by one. When they open a door, describe each step of the process in detail – reaching out for the doorknob, a momentary distraction just as the character is about to grip the knob, taking hold of the knob and starting to turn it, hearing the slide drawing back within the mechanism, a click as the knob reaches the end of its travel, the door slowwwwly opening to reveal… This is all about building the expectation of release, and it’s a Clayton’s promise in the context of the writer’s guide. What you are actually promising is not that there will be a dramatic release of tension when the door opens, but that there will eventually be an even bigger release of tension.

No let-up

Above all, there must be no release of the suspense. Don’t let the players take a break, don’t call an end to the game and expect to take up where you left off next time. Players may seek to discharge the suspense with humor – laugh right along with the rest and then carry on without let-up; such discharges are strictly small and temporary so long as the big pay-off lingers on the horizon while never quite manifesting. Don’t permit the characters to do anything decisive – if they try to do something that would end or reduce the threat, like turning on the light switch, don’t let them get away with it. Either whatever they are doing doesn’t work (they lights stay out) – or give them hope by letting it succeed, only to dash it (the lights come on – and then, one by one, or all at once, wink back out).

An equally big key is not permitting game mechanics to break the mood – No dice-rolling, no consulting character sheets or rule-books, and as little side conversation as possible. Yes, there are advanced techniques for using die rolls to build additional tension, like not asking a player to make a skill check and not telling them whether they succeed or not (or, if that is inherently obvious by virtue of the game system, not telling them what the significance is). Experiment, if you want to, but cautiously – a little of this goes a long way, and for the most part you will still want to design the encounter to minimize such things. It’s better, for the most part, to assume that a character will succeed in doing anything that doesn’t puncture the mood than to require them to make a die roll – and if it is something that will puncture the mood, let them succeed anyway (and then negate the benefit), as described earlier.

One of the scariest encounters that I ever ran worked like this: it started with an attack without warning from the shadows – a single attempted blow that was a deliberate near-miss doing enough incidental damage to the landscape that it was threatening to the character, with the attacker vanishing back into the shadows. Then the PC’s shadow began moving and twisting as though the light source that was casting it was moving – when it wasn’t – so that it was always behind the character. No matter what the character did, he could not make the shadow go away, it always seemed to be creeping up on him…

You can even tease the characters a little with a slight easing of the tension, a false release before again turning the screws.

This works because even though you are addressing the characters and their actions, the targets of you suspense are the players running those characters.

The Inconclusive Release

When it finally comes, the release of the tension should be sudden, dramatic, inconclusive, and unexpected. A whirlwind of violent action that ends just as suddenly as it began without terminating the threat. Then start building suspense again. The second time around, what was suspense will be suspense plus a tinge of fear.

Scary is not Scariest

These techniques are great for making any encounter scary – but they don’t make the villain scary, just the encounter. For a villain to be inherently scary, we have to look further.

The Anathema

All player characters have values of some sort, even in an Evil campaign. One of the most obvious Character Villains is the anathema, the villain who is everything that the player character hates and fears. That makes the villain something uniquely personal to the player character in question. It’s still not enough to make them scary, but it’s enough to get the character’s attention. It’s a starting point.

A more fearsome approach would be the Character Villain who twists or perverts every ambition the character has for the future, whose very existence threatens the character with impotence and despair. Note that it is not enough for the GM to simply describe the villain to the player in these terms; the villain has to actually engender these reactions in the character, which means they have to do likewise to some extent to the player who owns him. You want the player to feel this reaction, at least in part.

But that’s still not inherently scary. Disturbing and Depressing, yes, but not yet scary. It’s part of the picture, but to get the rest of it, we will need to pursue another avenue.

There but for the grace of god…

Villainous versions of heroic PCs are a staple of the superhero genre. Their roots trace all the way back to the story of Cain and Abel, or perhaps Adam & Eve and the expulsion from the Garden. It’s not at all uncommon to extrapolate the principle into other types of campaign, like Pulp or Fantasy. GMs love them because they are fun. Players love them because they explore the roads not taken, and give them a chance to display aspects of their characters that don’t often get an airing. Characters hate them because they are everything the character doesn’t want to be, and yet are branches from the same root.

Like a snowball rolling downhill and gathering mass and momentum, the smallest change can accumulate consequences until the end result is as different as night and day – and yet it is familiar, with substantial common ground that it shares with the original character. These characters play with the primal forces of why the character is who they are, and that’s what makes them so fascinating to everyone.

What if, instead of aiming for a character who was the “evil twin” of a character, we aimed for the personality profile I identified in the preceding section? Call it… the twisted might-have-been.

The Twisted Might-have-been

Our character villain, then, is enough like the character that they have all sorts of common ground. Similar backgrounds. Similar experiences. Similar desires, similar flaws. Close enough to be brothers, or to be sisters. And yet, they are so twisted that their very reason for being is anathema to the character; not merely everything that the character hates and fears, but the antithesis of every principle and ambition the character holds dear. A Character Villain whose very existence implies that the character could become everything that he hates, and everything that the player doesn’t want his character to be, because of that common ground?

Have you ever encountered a snake in the wild? Potentially poisonous, potentially deadly – you can’t take your eyes off it, you don’t dare even blink. And it feels just as threatened by your presence – so it stares back just as intently.

Okay, maybe the Australian experience is a little different to that of the rest of the world – there are only a few species of deadly snake in North America, for example, and most are of a temperament that would just as soon leave you alone if you give it the chance. In Australia, most of the snakes are deadly, and there are a lot of them. And some of them can be very aggressive and bad-tempered. Children are always taught to be careful – especially since what might not be deadly to an adult can be very deadly to a child – and that childhood training is carried forward into adulthood. Just take a look at Wikipedia’s list of snake species native to Australia. If you consult AustralianFauna dot com’s page on snakes, you will find the following:

In Australia most people are well afraid of snakes. And with good enough reason. If you step on one accidentally you might well be bitten. And that has consequences. Perhaps that is why Australians even in snake free countries such as New Zealand can’t relax in long grass.

It’s actually more a matter of sensible precaution and common sense, even here, as the comments at the end of the AustralianFauna page makes clear:

Many Australians can tell stories of nearly treading on a snake, being frightened by a snake, or even killing a snake. One of the best known snake stories is ‘The Drover’s Wife’ by Henry Lawson which tells of a women’s all night vigil to protect her children knowing that there is a snake in the wall of their slab hut. Although deaths from snake bite do occur, (eg one elderly women was bitten by a tiger snake while she pruned the ivy on the fence in Kew, an inner suburb of Melbourne, in 2003), many more deaths from snake bite occur in Asia and Africa.

The difference is that in the US, most people are warned about Rattlesnakes and there aren’t that many other common species of dangerous snake. Most snakes can be considered relatively harmless. In Australia, we are taught that any snake is potentially deadly, especially if mishandled. In the old days, they used to killed if they infringed on a populated settlement; these days, most are a protected species, and there are government services you can call to come and safely remove any snake you find if it’s somewhere it shouldn’t be.

The Outback Australia Travel Guide’s page on Australian Outback Dangers makes no bones about the reality.

Snakes are the number one fear of most Outback travellers. Australian snakes are the most dangerous in the world. Or so they say… Well, fact is, the “most dangerous snake in the world“, the Australian Inland Taipan, never killed anyone. To date not a single person died from the bite of the Inland Taipan. Precious few people have died of any snake bites in Australia. The people who get bitten are usually herpetologists (people whose job involves playing with snakes), people who act as if they were herpetologists (a surprisingly large number of drunk males get bitten by snakes…) or idiots trying to kill snakes. A bit of common sense wouldn’t go astray here… Yes, there are poisonous snakes in Australia. No, they are not dangerous, as long as you leave them alone.

(For the record, I agree with everything the Outback Australia Travel Guide’s page has to say).

Getting back to the point, a Character Villain who meets this description should hold the same level of fascination for the PC and for his or her player, and for exactly the same reason: They are scared stiff of each other, and what each other represents. It places the character at the same crossroads as the point of “Evil Twin” divergence – but it does so in the here-and-now, with an uncertain future, rather than in the past, where it can be an intellectual exercise combined with a “thank goodness it wasn’t me”.

You can get a similar effect by bringing a broken and twisted version of the character back from the future – the very existence of the character is inherently scary, and the more plausible the road from who the character is to what he or she may apparently become, the more scary it becomes.

Making Proper Use of the Scariest Villain

It’s very easy to squander the potential of the scariest villain. The GM is undoubtedly proud of his handiwork, and there’s a natural tendency to want to show it off.

Less is more.

Take all those tactics and techniques for creating suspense and treat them as an analogy for how you should employ the Villain. Start by showing the Villain to be a threat, and keep the encounter inconclusive. Then actively search for ways to emphasize the common ground between the PC and the Villain in subsequent encounters. Each such item is the equivalent of focusing on the relative minutia. Have the villain finish the PCs thoughts occasionally. Build up to the revelation of their ultimate similarity little by little, building the tension within the relationship until it is ready to explode.

The Scariest Villain – A shortcut

The scariest villain is actually relatively easy to create. Take a copy of the PC, with exactly the same hopes, dreams, ambitions, and motivations. Give them the same personality traits, the same psychological quirks, the same family structure, everything. Make any changes only in areas that have never contributed to the PC becoming who they are. Then add one incident that convinces the Villain that achieving these hopes, dreams, ambitions, and motivations justifies any means, however regretfully. Then turn them loose…

This is the third, final, and largest part of this series, which examines the lessons in problem-solving that I learned through training as a fire warden and as a systems analyst back in the early 90s, as applied to an RPG context. The goal is offer practical techniques that can be used to get a GM or a player through whatever difficult situation they may encounter. Part One offered some general advice, while Part Two took a detailed look at the subject of setting priorities, and used the example of a GM needing to fit game prep into a limited time window. With the series originally intended to be a single article, this concluding chapter will warp up the subject with some more practical techniques and advice to get you out of trouble.

Can information gathering occur concurrent with rapid action?

You can’t act decisively without facts to base your plans apon, but every moment that passes gives a problem time to grow, so immediate and decisive action is required. This is a classic dilemma that military and rescue personnel face on a regular basis, and some of the advice already offered – “What can you do Right Now?, and Part two’s entire discussion on breaking problems up and prioritizing the smaller problems – has been aimed squarely at overcoming the conflict between the two mission objectives.

This question considers another way to resolve the conflict. It can also be stated , “do any part of the problem you understand and then reconsider the whole,” but that implies seeing the action started through to its conclusion – and sometimes the information gathered while undertaking immediate action can change the need for, or priority of, that immediate action. If the situation is not what it appears – often the case when dealing with mistaken assumptions or a scheming mastermind – it might turn out that the immediate action is in fact the last thing that should be done.

Still another way of describing this procedure is “positioning your forces ready to act while they gather intelligence on the problem”, and that is often the description applied in a military context; but this suffers from the opposite flaw to the first alternative formulation, in that it implies that all you will do is get ready while gathering information, which can mean failing to take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves.

A fourth way of offering this same advice is to “stir around but do nothing final, and see what happens”. This is tantamount to involving yourself in a situation without a plan while not knowing what that situation is, and implies that any information-gathering will be coincidental and by happenstance, rather than a deliberate priority.

Because all the alternative ways of describing the process are flawed in one way or another, they are less likely to produce a solution when adopted as a policy or tactic than is the primary approach I’ve offered. Furthermore, if the opposition is particularly canny or well-informed (that scheming mastermind again), they may be able to distinguish between these approaches, recognize the shortcomings inherent when one of the alternatives is employed, and then exploit that flaw. This is something PCs should bear in mind when it’s an NPC group opposed to their interests who is trying to solve “the problem”.

What’s changed?

When something that has worked reliably for some time suddenly fails, in whole or in part, the first question should be “What’s changed?” The connection between that change and the new behavior might not be obvious, may be very convoluted, and there might in fact be no connection – but it’s a starting point that can lead to solutions.

One of the systems for which I was responsible in my Systems analyst days had a report listing various things in customer name sequence. It had worked perfectly for years. Suddenly and without explanation, it was listing some of new customers separately to old customers. Clearly something had changed, but nothing seemed obvious. It was eventually discovered that the operating system captured the difference between a Space and a Shift-space, and the department had a new data entry person who had the habit of pressing the shift key to capitalize the client’s name and sometimes hit the shift key a little early. A new step had to be added to the data entry process to strip out any shift-spaces and replace them with ordinary spaces, and a batch job written to clean up the records that were already in the system incorrectly.

You get the same question offered when you start getting system crashes on a computer – “What’s Changed?” Have you installed some new hardware, or new software, that could be interfering with some other process that had been working reliably in the past?

One of my older computers developed the habit of crashing at certain times of day. It could be reliably expected to happen. What had changed? Answer: I had replaced the power board with a generic brand version because I needed to use the old one elsewhere (it had more outlets). When the signals sent over the power lines to switch off-peak hot-water systems on or off reached this new power board, they produced a moment of “dirty” power – I don’t know whether it was a voltage spike or a corrupted waveform instead of the smooth AC input expected – but the old power board had been filtering this out, and the new one was not. This in turn was enough to cause the computer to crash. Part of the problem was that the computer’s power supply unit was getting old, and it was becoming more sensitive as a result. Eventually, it burned out under the unusual input. Replacing it provided a partial solution – instead of crashing the computer, the signal was simply passed through to the soundcard and manifested as audible tones. Only when I got some additional hardware that required putting the larger powerboard back in place, and these tones stopped abruptly, did the whole story become clear – I had blamed the failing power supply and that was only half the problem.

This advice applies far more broadly than just to computers. Whenever a system delivers an unusual or unexpected outcome – whether that’s a system of bureaucracy or of government or of law or whatever – your first question should always be, “What’s Changed?” and your second, “How could that change have resulted in this unusual outcome?” If the unusual outcome is a problem to be solved – and it almost always is a problem for someone, even if the results were beneficial (people like to learn from serendipity) – this is almost always the start of the path to a solution.

No-One’s Perfekt

People make mistakes. Good systems design anticipates this and prepares solutions to identify and correct the mistake before it becomes significant – but those systems are designed and built by people, too, so from time to time something will slip through the cracks. Which is all quite understandable – unless your department is charging the people for whom the system is being developed or maintained four figures an hour for your time, when it becomes simply not good enough?

The bigger and more complicated a system is, the easier it is for a mistake to fall through the cracks.

Another truism of systems development is that a mistake in design that is identified later in the development cycle – in the testing phase, for example – costs at least ten times as much to correct as one discovered at the beginning, during the design process.

Once again, these principles have a reach that goes far beyond the world of software engineering. Consider the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, where a design flaw resulted in catastrophic failure four months after it was built. Warning signs were present in that period, as interviews of motorists revealed after the fact. Presumably, these warning signs would also have been present during construction – but they were either not noticed, went ignored, or the complaints never reached the ears of someone who could do something about them in time. On November 7, 1940, the bridge collapsed and fell into Puget Sound. Whatever correction of the design flaws would have cost during the design phase, it would have been less than if corrective action was taken during the construction phase, which would have been less than solving the problem before it became catastrophic, at which point the entire US$8 million dollar structure had to be replaced.

To some extent, the engineering principles that were responsible for the flaw in design were unknown prior to the collapse, so this problem could be considered an unrepresentative example; so let’s take another: the Hubble Space Telescope.

Initially funded in the 1970s, technical delays and budget problems delayed the project. Originally intended for a 1983 launch, it would not reach orbit until 1990. In particular, congress cut funding during the planning stages; to what extent this contributed to the later problems with the telescope may never be known. Unknown to anyone at the time, despite some warning signs, the equipment used to monitor and control the grinding of the mirror had been incorrectly assembled, causing the mirror to be very accurately ground to the wrong shape. In 1993, a major shuttle mission performed an ingenious repair, and we’ve been going gosh-wow ever since.

I don’t know how much the repair mission cost, but for sure it was more than replacing or repairing the mirror before launch would have been. And that would have been far more than discovering the incorrect installation of the testing equipment during the grinding process. And that, in turn, would have been far more than making sure the testing equipment had been correctly set up in the first place – which would have been done if the potential implications had been correctly identified in the planning stages and appropriate testing specified. Ultimately, a minor flaw in the planning process mushroomed into catastrophic failure, from which the project was rescued by a combination of smart thinking and a lot of money and effort.

The sooner a problem is discovered, the easier it is to fix. It’s as true in engineering and writing novels and RPG adventures as it is in computer programming and systems development. It’s always important to identify and understand the cause of a problem. Sometimes, it is the only pathway to a solution, and for certain it’s the only way to ensure that the problem doesn’t recur – and that it has been solved and not merely hidden from overt view, this time around.

Look beyond the immediate

It’s not at all uncommon for a problem’s consequences to be discovered long before the problem itself – and, as I wrote in part 1 of this series, you have to “Manage Symptoms, Cure Causes” and not the other way around. It’s not at all uncommon for a problem in a process or situation to be completely unnoticeable until some other product or situation attempts to use the flawed product of the original process or situation. You can sometimes find the real cause of a problem, and the correct solution to that problem, by looking at the last step in the process that appeared to work successfully.

I had this rammed home to me recently. I had a problem while preparing the recent review of The Unconventional Dwarf. The article uploaded and saved just fine, but when I went to preview it (to make any final tweaks or corrections to the layout) WordPress kept coming up with a 404 “page not found” error – it was claiming that the article didn’t exist, that I was trying to preview something that WordPress couldn’t find. Eventually, I discovered that my cookie for the site admin pages had been corrupted somehow, and that this formed a key input into telling the WordPress control panel how to do its job (because that was where my preferences were saved). Log out, delete the cookie, and log back in – problem solved.

It’s often worth looking, then, beyond whatever is manifesting the problem, at whatever produced the inputs to that particular process. In fact, the earlier “shift-space” problem that I described is another example of this – at the time that the data was being entered, it appeared to be saved perfectly correctly, and there was no problem in evidence. Only when another process attempted to work with the flawed data did a problem manifest itself – but the problem was not in the process giving incorrect results, that was simply where the symptoms of the problem were manifesting.

“Garbage In, Garbage Out” is a well-known phrase these days, and it describes the situation in the “shift-space” problem to a T. But I have never seen what should now be an obvious corollary: “Garbage Out, Garbage In” when talking about the way one process connects with another. If something strange is happening, it generally pays to look beyond the immediate “something strange” when trying to work out why strange things are happening.

Don’t ignore the waistcoating

A related lesson is summed up in the maxim quoted above. Trying to trace a problem to a particular subsystem ignores the seams in between – and that’s sometimes where the real problem is.

One of the systems for which I was responsible back in my Systems Analysis days started crashing and producing garbage. Part of this system imported information from a seemingly unrelated system run by a completely different department. The latter system was still working perfectly, but whenever this import job was run, it would collapse or parse garbage which was corrupting the database of the system I looked after. It didn’t take long to discover the cause – the effects of inflation on prices had just carried one of the data fields in the file being imported to a new order of magnitude, one that was one digit too long for the importing software. The output, in other words, might have read “1022.48” and the software I looked after could only cope with a number of “999.99” or less. It took only a moment to fix the problem; it took rather longer to write and test a one-off tool to remove the corrupted data and troll through the other departments database to capture the correct information to replace it. It subsequently transpired that the other department had been forced to modify their own system to cope with the extra digit, but no-one had realized that this might have knock-on effects elsewhere in any other system that used that information. Fixing the actual problem was relatively trivial, fixing the overall system ecology – the principles and practices of the department within which I worked – to prevent (or at least to watch for) similar problems arising in the future was rather more difficult.

Reality doesn’t draw hard lines and say “this process ends there” and “this process begins here” – these are artificial limits imposed to aid human comprehension. So far as reality is concerned, it is all one big, ongoing, complex, process. The problem is that we often impose these limits before we really understand what we’re talking about, and are imposing them in order to facilitate that understanding – and sometimes, there is something going on in-between the two processes that wasn’t known about at the time.

If you can’t see anything going wrong in either of the processes, but the outcome is unexpected nevertheless – and this happens all the time in economics and biology and ecologies and a hundred other fields – it’s a sure bet that something is happening in the waistcoating between the two identified processes. And the lesson from The Butterfly Effect is that the waistcoating can be influenced by processes that are unbelievably distinct from the situation being discovered – you just need a long chain of causes and effects to couple the two together.

So if there is no obvious cause for a problem, and hence no obvious solution, don’t ignore the waistcoating.

Document! Document! Document!

I’ve gotten myself into trouble more times than I can count because I didn’t write something down – usually something so obvious, so important, that I would have “no trouble” remembering it. Way back in April 2011 I wrote The failure of …ummm… Memory, the title of which should clue you into how well that usually works out.

Adequate documentation becomes even more important when you’re analyzing someone else’s handiwork, such as when you’re maintaining a computer program they’ve written. Every hour spent on documentation saves five to ten hours time for everyone who subsequently work on that software, every time they have to work on it – provided the documentation is also maintained.

Whenever you are sure that your documentation is adequate, in terms of RPGs, the only thing you can be sure of is that something vitally important is missing – and the best that you can hope for is that what is written there will provide enough context to remind you of what’s missing.

In terms of gaming, a lot of GMs will carefully insert clues to future problems into their adventures. That’s information that will frequently be lost to players who don’t write it down.

The Cheat’s solution to problem creation
I know of absolutely nowhere wherein it is written that the GM needs to have a specific problem in mind when he offers a clue to the solution of that problem. You can drop the clue and figure out what it means later. This keeps the campaign spontaneous, fresh, and unpredictable – but means that it will collapse into a screaming heap somewhere down the track if the players remember that clue and keep trying to fit it in, somewhere, while the GM has forgotten it. The more you rely on improv over prep, the more important it becomes to document what you come up with on the fly.

Allow for human laziness

We all get lazy from time to time. You can’t work continuously, day in and day out, and maintain the same level of dedication to whatever you are doing – whether it’s running a campaign, working a job, or chores around the house. If we could only know when it was vital that we be at the top of our games, we could ease up a little the rest of the time and stockpile our energies for when it really matters. Inevitably, most of the time, we don’t have this information, which means that somewhere, at any given time, someone has taken their foot off the accelerator at the worst possible time, permitting a Balrog or two to slip through the cracks.

They start out small and innocuous, and can usually be penned up and exhibited in the zoo if caught quickly enough, but inevitably some of them will reach full maturity – and that’s when there’s a problem, both for whoever was guarding the henhouse and for whoever is sent in to clean up the mess.

Constant supervision is not the answer; not only is it wasteful of resources, being spied apon constantly has a detrimental effect on both the quantity of work performed and its quality, and ultimately is simply shifting the problem from one set of shoulders to another – waiting for the day when the supervisor is off his game. Even worse, it can become expected that “George” will fix the problem, relaxing the standard of diligence that would otherwise be present.

The only solution is to make allowances for human laziness at the same time as you are making allowances for people making mistakes – and build systems into your processes that test for overlooked consequences and errors of omission as well as errors of commission.

Of course, this is fairly irrelevant when you are the troubleshooter who has to solve the problem after the fact, isn’t it?

Not at all. One of the tasks that must be achieved when first looking for a solution is working out how long you have to come up with a solution and implement it. And that almost always involves working out how long people will take to achieve certain tasks.

You almost always have a little more time than you think. The last minute may be a hour or so long. The last second is often a full minute in length.

Part of the reason for this is that this is reality, and part of it is because, while the GM wants to make things dramatic and exciting, he doesn’t want the PCs to fail, necessarily. So the GM throws minor inconveniences and roadblocks into the path of a solution so that PCs can’t implement it until the last minute, or even the last possible second – and then balances the books by making sure that the players have a fair chance at achieving a solution in the time available.

Always allow for human laziness. His. Theirs. Yours. The GMs. But don’t ever make the mistake of assuming that non-humans have human laziness problems; they may have none, or may have completely different issues to overcome.

Don’t lose track of the clock

If this seems like contradictory advice to that of the previous section, that’s because it is. While most GMs will stretch the time window out to heighten the drama, they won’t view with generosity a failure to be in position to execute the solution when the time comes. Only when the PCs have a solution that to the best of their knowledge will work and is reasonable will the GM consider himself free to take liberties in the name of excitement – coming up with that solution and making all the preparations necessary to implement it is the responsibility of the PCs and their players, and he or she will be scrupulously fair in the meantime – even if that means that they appear to be biased against them. In other words, if the PCs opposition has an advantage over them, expect them to exploit it to the best of the GMs ability because that is what an opposition in that circumstance would do.

That means that there is a hard limit, time-wise, to how long the players can take to find a solution to whatever problems they are confronting. Beyond that point, momentum will carry their enemies to a victory that remains inevitable only because the PCs didn’t find a way to stop it.

The exact measure of that hard limit will vary depending on the circumstances, though the GM will usually drop a hint or two. If he doesn’t, or if whatever hint there might have been has sailed clear over your head, this becomes one of the key pieces of intelligence that the GM expects the PCs to have to obtain as part of their investigations.

Nor should any GM ever guarantee that the PCs will have enough time to find a solution. There are two circumstances in which the GM will usually do the exact opposite:

1. When the GM’s hints that there is a problem that isn’t being addressed by the PCs have fallen on deaf ears until the other side’s plans have had time to mature; or,
2. When the GM wants to run a 13th-hour adventure, which usually means that the enemy “victory” is nowhere near as set in stone as they think it is.

All of which means that it behooves the problem-solver to never lose track of the clock. You might not know what the timeline looks like, you might not recognize a deadline if you tripped over one, but you should always be aware of how long you have spent on a problem – and how long it’s likely to be before the sands of time run out.

This is also true at a metagame level. A GM will only watch the players going around in circles without direction for so long after he’s given them all the clues they should need to at least get started on a solution before he will lose patience. Normally, after presenting a problem to the PCs, the passage of game time shifts to something close to real time, or even slower; when his patience runs out, it’s prone to accelerate in the other direction, and word will reach the PCs that there has been an unfavorable development of some sort – and things have just gotten worse. What happens after that depends on the GM. Some will take pity on the players, who will have undoubtedly become just as frustrated, and offer an increasingly blatant hint – at some price to be dictated by the GM on another occasion. I’m of that sort. Others will let events take their course – so that if the players don’t pull their fingers out, eventually the PCs will simply stand around and wring their hands in despair while the plot comes to its inevitable conclusion, and let the chips fall where they may.

Playing an RPG is all about problem solving (amongst other things), ground that they have had in common with computer-based RPGs since the days of Zork. Time keeps happening in the game; don’t lose track of the clock, and – if you have to – be prepared to go with your best guess and make it up as you go along.

Work within the limits of resources

We’re inching toward the conclusion of this article, but we’re not there yet. In part one, I suggested that people needed to know their tools. The suggestion above is an extension to that principle. You not only know what your tools can do, and how to use them to do it, you need to know what other tools are available and what they can be used to achieve – for those times when your own toolkit is inadequate to a solution.

At the same time, it does no good wishing for moonbeams; “I could solve it in a trice if Pi were equal to four, or if I squared the circle,” just doesn’t cut it. Some problems may be simply too big to be solved with the resources that you can bring to bear, and that’s as true in real life as it is in game prep and for the characters in an adventure.

In a way, that’s what this entire series has been about. After all, problems with easy solutions can be solved right away, with no need for advice from anyone. It’s when you don’t have any easy answers that you want advice. So, when confronted with a problem that seems too large to be solved, you have just two approaches to pursue – and the right answer is probably going to be a combination of both.

Are resources inadequate?

Are your current resources sufficient to solve the problem? If not, you need to work out what else you need, and the obtaining of the necessary becomes a part of the solution.

Can problems be scaled down?

The other approach is to find a way to scale down or isolate your problems, and one of the best ways of doing that is to reduce the resources of the other side (there always seems to be some form of active opposition in these cases). Better yet, you might be able to take the other side’s resources and make them your own, taking two steps forward for the price of one.

When the PCs first arrived in Dimension Halo, the local setting for the adventures within my rebooted superhero campaign, the problems that confronted them seemed too big for them to solve. Organized Crime was running rampant, Corruption was systemic, Joseph McCarthy was US President, there was an oppressive superagency called the S.I.D. which answered to no-one except for the alien mastermind who was the local dimension’s analogue of the greatest Hero the PCs had ever known, and the PCs were very much on their own, with no official authority or sanction of any kind – only a pressing need to get control of these situations.

They started by cleaning up one police department, then achieving popular support, agitating against the repressive regime. From one clean department, they obtained localized authority, and used it to clean up one city council, which enabled them to clean the corruption out of an entire state. They enticed the S.I.D. into public excesses and slowly won the support of the media. Bit by bit, they reduced the scope of the problem, eventually forcing Al Capone out of the Governor’s mansion in Illinois, breaking the back of organized crime, arresting all but one of the justices of the supreme court, obtaining proof of corruption that led to the arrest and conviction of 2/3 of Congress and 3/4 of the Senate, forced the S.I.D. to become a rogue agency, and eventually put the choice of the future to the public in a closely-fought presidential election between a known honest man and their arch-enemy. Eventually, he was isolated and alone, while they had national backing and sanction and mass popular support. The initial situation was completely reversed. No one plan could have accomplished all this; there were too many surprises and plot twists along the way. By acquiring additional resources (public support, official sanction, allies) and denying resources to the other side, one after another, the lines of what was possible and what was not were moved until a solution emerged.

The Insoluble Problem

Even more extreme, some problems seem insoluble. When presented with such a problem, players should always remember that the GM has no interest in presenting them with a genuinely insoluble problem (the NPCs that he has created are a different story). My rule of thumb, as a GM, is to always make sure that there is at least one solution to every dilemma, even if it is not obvious – and where there’s one, there will usually be two or three. Finding one and implementing it are then up to the PCs. The objective is for everyone to have fun, not for me to out-think the players; I’m more on their side than opposed to them.

Accordingly, no matter how insoluble a problem is, there is a solution possible. Failure to find it generally comes down to one of four mistakes: Flawed Logic, Flawed Assumptions, Narrow Focus, or a Fuzzy Reality.

• Flawed Logic – something that seems an inevitable consequence, isn’t.
• Flawed Assumptions – something that is being taken for granted is not as inevitable as it seems.
• Narrow Focus – there is a possible course of action that is not even being considered.
• Fuzzy Reality – the players are applying one or more real-world constraints or restrictions that might not always apply in the game environment.

When confronted with an apparently insoluble problem, how should one proceed? [NB: These techniques won’t always apply to real life problems but are worth trying, anyway.]

Look For The ‘Because’ Contradiction

This works to correct flawed logic and, sometimes, the other causes. List the things you might do and articulate the one salutary reason why it won’t work – then try and envisage a way to change the circumstances so that the ‘because’ you will not inevitably follow. This will usually produce a list of possible courses of action that can be taken to make the insoluble, soluble. One of these will usually be more practical than the others, or will have fewer unwanted consequences, or be more controllable by the PCs, or simply be more tolerable – that’s the one you want. If there are none that fit this prescription, you then need a three-step solution – in other words, you need to further modify the circumstances so that taking that particular course of action will not have the intolerable unwanted consequences, or that will not be so uncontrollable, or will become more practical, or will become more tolerable. Simply keep adding steps to the solution package until you get to where you need to go – or run out of time and need to implement the best plan you have.

Examine The Environment of the problem

This works as a correction when the problem is a flawed assumption. Every problem has constraints that limit the scope for possible solutions, many of which are simply assumed to exist by those looking for a solution. Those assumptions are rarely tested for validity. Redefining the problem in various ways can get around the flawed assumption; when you find something that seems to solve the redefined problem, reconsider the original formulation of the problem to identify the flawed assumption (if any) and verify that this really is a solution to the problem.

Part of this procedure is in considering the characteristics of each of these solution constraints for something that may not necessarily be the case. This may involve some simple testing to discern the difference between the apparent and reality, if any.

This is a technique for thinking outside the box – and remember, a box has six sides – something I pointed out in an earlier problem-solving article, Boxed In: A problem-solving frame of reference for players & GMs alike, which I commend to your attention at this point.

Visualize the situation

Sometimes problems seem to have no solution because of the way you are looking at the problem. This is usually an example of Narrow Focus, in which you simply aren’t considering all the possibilities, and is also something addressed by the “Boxed In” article. If you can see no solution, try looking at the problem from a different viewpoint.

If we’re talking about some sort of physical problem, try a different physical perspective; the use of figures and miniatures and maps and battlemats encourages a top-down perspective, so much so that many people forget that the space they are in even has a ceiling – or has no ceiling. Lock the PCs in a 20′ x 20′ room, with a near-impregnable door and the lock and hinges on the far side, and no apparent exit, and they will start to think about secret doors. Put the actual secret door in the ceiling and it will take them ages to find it – and they will probably check the walls three or four times, first, and maybe try and burn down the door, to boot.

For any other sort of problem, pick a character whose personality you know well, and who is absolutely nothing like that of your own character, and ask yourself how would they solve this particular problem? I like using Dr Doom for this purpose, but it’s not my only option. Once you have a solution, all you have to do is refine it until it becomes acceptable to your character. It’s this sort of “outside the box” thinking that leads to the famous “shoot the hostage” solution in Speed…

Assume you haven’t been told everything

All too often, players assume that they’ve been told everything they need to know when the GM falls silent. I always find it more productive to assume that I haven’t been told everything, and try to work out what I should be asking the GM questions about. This is still another way of testing the parameters of the problem, and you should not be afraid to take that literally as well as figuratively. The wall may only look like it’s made of granite…

Slice The Sausage

Some advice that you often hear when asking how to diagnose a computer problem is to turn off everything that might be causing the problem, and see if it goes away. If it does, then turn things back on, one at a time, until you find the problem returning – and that will tell you what is actually causing the problem.

A similar approach is used to diagnose hardware faults. Borrow someone else’s computer and try replacing each of your suspect components temporarily. Use their hard disk to boot up. Try their graphics card. Whatever. Or, if the component cost is low enough, replace any possible culprit on general principles and see if the problem gets fixed. I’ve heard of a number of cases, for example, where it looked like a disk drive was failing when the real problem was an intermittent fault in the cable connecting the drive to the motherboard – and replacing this $5-$10 part fixed the problem. Or you can plug things into different sockets of the same type on the computer.

The first request of my ISP when people have trouble with their internet connection is to make what they call the “plugs out” test. This involves unplugging phones and everything else that is connected to the phone line except the computer and seeing if you can connect. If you can, plug the other items back in, one at a time, until you isolate the problem. On one occasion, I discovered that the line filter had failed; replacing it brought back my internet connection. On another occasion, I discovered that the phone cable used to connect my modem to the phone outlet had failed – no warning, it was simply completely dead. Both problems were solved a lot more cheaply than getting a technician out to test the actual phone line.

The metaphor that I use to think of all these tests, and similar problem solving approaches, is “Slice the sausage” – in which the “sausage” is the accumulation of all the things that might be the cause of the problem. Remove “the sausage” and then put it back, one slice at a time. I use this metaphor as a reminder to actually employ this problem-solving approach on a broader scale, and to deal with problems other than these specific examples.

The Well of Infinity
I was going to offer an example of an insoluble problem at this point, and then start listing all the things that could be tried as solutions, but time has gotten the better of me. Since it wasn’t going to add materially to the advice offered, I’m going to forego it. I might write it up and tack it on as a fourth part to the series sometime when I’m short of time to write something. For now, though, I’ll just move on…

Don’t Panic

When you’re confronted with the unexpected – or even an expected problem – these immortal words should be the first thing that comes to mind. Panic doesn’t help you think faster, it doesn’t help you think more clearly or more deeply – in fact, it inhibits all of these things just at the time when you most need them.

Keep those two words of advice in mind when you’re implementing whatever solution (however incomplete) that you come up with, too.

Expect the unexpected

After all, if you could see the whole problem, you would also see the whole solution. Since you can’t do the latter, you also can’t do the former – and that pretty much guarantees that there will be surprises along the way.

It can always be worse

Whatever problem you are faced with, it can always be worse than it is, or than it currently appears. Don’t waste effort trying to think of ways in which this could be true; just tell yourself this, and get on with things. Again, this is true in real life as well as in-game.

It can always get better

Similarly, no matter how hopeless things may appear, always remember this. Just because you don’t know how to make this happen doesn’t mean you should stop going through the motions and doing what it is that you do. Again, there are going to be surprises, and at least some of them should be pleasant ones (from your point of view). You may not know how long it will take, either; all you can do is keep going, endure, and wait.

Never Say Die

No-one can possibly implement all of this advice, or you would never do anything but figure out theoretical solutions to your problems. The key to success is to identify which problem-solving strategy is most applicable to whatever trouble is currently confronting you, and employ it. If it doesn’t work, try one of the others. I don’t care if the problem is a real-world one, or a fictional one, or a game-mastering one – the techniques are the same. That’s why these lessons from my past experience apply not only to the context in which they were given, but to any broader context you may encounter.

And you know, there’s very little that is more gratifying than solving a problem that confronts you…

Part one of this trilogy of articles offered some general advice on problem-solving drawn from my experience and training as a fire safety officer and systems analyst. Part three will offer more of the same, but the discussion in the first part had reached the point of considering the subject of setting priorities – a discussion that quickly ballooned into something altogether too large and important to be contained in what was originally planned to be a single article.

Prioritization is an essential skill for long-term success. In terms of problem-solving, the subject falls into four broad categories: Problem Definition, Solution Prioritization, Confluences, and Consequences & Repercussions. While I’m going to try and inject some rationality into the analyses of these different topics, in practice the results are a theoretical exercise that is not worth undertaking, so people tend to rely on gut instinct and cloak their decisions on whatever spurious and specious logic they can bring to bear. What’s needed are some practical shortcuts to put a little of that theoretical rigor into the analytic and decision-making processes – preferably something that can be applied mentally, without recourse to physical representations, but something that can be done on scraps of paper would be better than nothing.

Fortunately, I have just such a practical technique to offer – in fact, I have two of them – and they form two additional topics for this article.

So, theory and then practice. And now that we all know what the road map for this particular discussion is going to be, let’s dive right in…

Problem Prioritization

If you have half-a-dozen problems to solve, how do you decide the order of priority for solving them?

Sub-Problem Breakdown

Every problem that exists can be broken down into the steps required to solve it, each of which can be restated as a separate sub-problem. Looking at this situation from another perspective, each sub-problem can be considered a partial solution to the larger problem. This becomes important when one considers that a partial solution may be almost as good as a complete solution, but take a lot less time and effort.

A great example is creating the next adventure in an RPG campaign. So that’s the main problem. Coming up with an overall idea is the first step. Working out how the characters get involved with whatever the situation is the second. Roughing out the events between this beginning through to the end of the plotline is the third. Determining where those events are likely to occur, in general, is the fourth. Identifying the NPCs that are needed is the fifth. Generating rough drafts of any maps, props, character handouts, etc is the sixth. The seventh is actually generating those props, maps, etc. Eighth though Eleventh are detailed Narratives, Location Descriptions, Character Outlines, and Dialogue outlines.

It’s possible to run the adventure after the first sub-problem, but it would be better if more prep was done. Each of the steps through to the Seventh add to the preparedness to run the adventure, but it’s only when all seven are complete that a new level of preparedness is achieved that is greater than the sum of its parts. The next iteration develops details for each of the elements roughed out in steps two to five, and at the end of that process, the adventure is definitely ready to run. Further steps would be needed to evolve the adventure to a publishable standard, making it less focused on the specific individuals in a particular campaign and more comprehensive, able to cope with a variety of PCs, and so on, but that’s not the problem at hand.

Criticality

The more essential a solution is to an individual subproblem, the more critical that sub-problem can be considered to the solution of the overall problem. In theory, if you add up the criticality measures of each subproblem, you achieve a measure of how critical the main problem is. The flaw in this theory is that it assumes each subproblem is of equal importance, and it just ain’t so.

For example, you may have four tasks to try and get done for the next game session. One is preparing the adventure. Two is mapping the base of operations that the PCs have just acquired. Three is populating it with NPCs. Four is working out the details of the magic items that they liberated in the last adventure. Five is working out the consequences of any loose ends that the PCs left in previous adventures, and how these will affect the adventure. Now assume that you don’t have time to do all of the above.

Criticality, in the context of this example, is how urgently you need something for the next game session.

You could identify which one item is most critical and spend all your time on that one item. You could prepare each item to a limited extent and then focus your remaining time on the one most critical. Either is preferable to spending all your time on an item chosen at random, because the odds are four-to-one against your choosing the right one.

An example from a player’s perspective is: We have five problems to deal with. Which one is most urgent? Of course, you can’t judge without knowing the circumstances and identifying the five specific problems, so let’s invent some for the purposes of discussion: We’re broke, we’re starving, we’re cursed, our base of operations just burned down, and we’re being hunted by the authorities for crimes we didn’t commit. One solution would be to let yourselves get captured – they feed you in jail and give you a roof over your head, you don’t need money, and the curse provides a defense of sorts – but I don’t expect most PCs to be happy with that choice, they tend to want to be more proactive in solving their problems. Devoting exclusive attention to any one of these problems isn’t going to work very well. A set of partial solutions is needed just to get a platform from which each of the problems can be addressed properly. The most critical problem is being hunted by the authorities – a temporary solution to that problem requires disguises of some sort. Once that’s in hand, money can get some food and temporary lodgings to serve as a new base of operations. Next would probably be the curse, depending on just what it was – and which probably doesn’t have an intermediate or partial solution, they tend to be all-or-nothing. With that out of the way, the group can function effectively – but by this time, money and food are probably back on the agenda, and if money isn’t solved, the lodgings issue will also crop up again. More money is therefore the next priority – again, a short-term solution is probably good enough. Once that’s solved, the dangers of the disguises being penetrated are probably severe enough that preparing a new set, ready to go, would be a good idea. Only then can the problem with the authorities be targeted – probably by trying to identify who’s falsely accused them and why.

That’s certainly the plan of action I would outline if I were confronted with this set of issues in a game.

The key to developing that plan was distinguishing between two types of sub-problem: permanent or lasting solutions, and temporary, immediate solutions, then assigning relative levels of criticality to each subproblem – then tackling them in the order of the resulting priority. The plan was further refined by considering how long the temporary solution would hold, and adjusting the priorities accordingly.

Of course, other considerations could come into play – if one of the characters was especially recognizable, or the authorities had some means of magically tracking the characters, or complications of that nature. It’s not the only solution – circumstances might require money in order to obtain disguise materials. But this would still be the basic starting point.

These examples demonstrate two fundamental principles of criticality analysis:

• Total Criticality is equal to the sum of sub-problem criticalities; and
• Relative Criticality will vary from one problem to another.

Assessing the relative Criticality of each subproblem in terms of solving the overall problem gives an accurate measure of the criticality over time of the sub-problem. The flaw in doing so is that it assumes that each overall problem has the same priority. Correcting this requires multiplying those individual sub-problem criticalities by the overall priority rating of each larger problem to get a true relative measure of the criticality.

Confinement

Criticality is not the only principle illustrated by these examples. The second general principle is Confinement. As a general rule of thumb, some problems restrict what can be done about other problems – “being wanted” is the obvious one. Depending on the specifics, the “Curse” might be another. It follows that these problems, and their component sub-problems, should receive a greater priority than their Criticality alone, simply because even a partial solution expands the number of options open to the problem-solver, or increases the effectiveness of solution attempts.

Mathematically:

• Sub-problem Priority = (Criticality x Relative Adjustment) + Confinement Modifier.
• Problem Priority = Sum (Sub-problem priority 1 + sub-problem priority 2 + …)

Solution Practicality

Sometimes there’s just nothing you can do. This is usually the consequence of a blocking sub-item, also known as a dependency. It’s hard to have a confrontation with the supervillain in his lair until you’ve worked out the details of that lair – so the lair blocks completion of the confrontation adventure, which is dependant on completion of the lair.

Clearly, the priority of creating the lair (to use this example) is more than if it stood alone. The actual Sub-problem priority is the usual priority measure PLUS the usual priority measure of everything that depends on it – and everything that depends on it has it’s normal priority MINUS this contribution (effectively zero) until this sub-priority item is dealt with.

The reason for this behavior is because one item is completely dependant on the other, which is another way of saying that one item is impractical until another is completed. But there are degrees of impracticality; it might not be necessary to completely detail the lair, a general summary might be enough, or perhaps you intend to use a map from a commercial product and improvise the details as you go. or maybe there’s enough material in the adventure that all you need for the next game session is a location description – so, by subdividing the adventure, you can relieve the dependency.

Practicality is therefore a fraction applied to the imported part of the sub-problem priority measure. If half the circumstances or approaches permit work to proceed without the dependency then only half the total value of the dependant items gets attached.

Mathematically:

• Sub-problem Dependency Modifier = Practicality Ratio x Base Sub-problem priority.
• Child Dependency Priority = Base Sub-problem priority – Sub-problem Dependency Modifier
• Parent Dependency Priority = Base Sub-problem priority – Sub-problem Dependency Modifier

Interval Capacity

Dependence is not the only influence on Practicality, but to facilitate analysis I have chosen to deal with the time requirement as a separate factor.

So how should time requirements be assessed? This is where it gets really tricky.

In the order of highest sub-problem, priority, multiply each priority by the probability of getting that particular task finished in the time remaining after all the previous items are completed.

This creates moving goal posts, but the end result is that priority scores get assigned to each task, and then adjusted for the real-world factors that always get in the way.

Confluences

So that’s it, we’ve allowed for everything, right? Note quite. There remain two factors that a realistic analysis would have to take into account, and they are both Confluences.

Anyone skipping all the deep theory might want to start reading from here.

Commonality Of Subproblems

First, we have a confluence of sub-problems, i.e. tasks, to consider. Any time that you need the same starting point in order to complete two or more subsequent tasks, you have a confluence of tasks.

With a ‘flat’ structure – one in which each preliminary step required to achieve a task is specified – this results in the same task being listed multiple times and receiving multiple priority scores. That’s not right – each task should have one entry and one entry only. Having done something, you don’t have to do it again to use it for something else.

The correct approach is to add the two priority measures together to get a net score. And if that puts a priority weighting on tasks that can be used for multiple purposes, what’s wrong with that?

Community Of Solutions

There are times when even though an item isn’t meant for a specific purpose, it can be adapted to that purpose. A good example is an illustration that you draw inspiration from; it can be used not only for idea generation, but can replace or compliment a narrative section. When this is explicitly defined as part of the overall problem, it’s an example of a standard confluence, as described in the previous section; when it’s a lucky accident, it’s a non-standard confluence that has the potential to completely reshape the priorities regarding the rest of the problem, and (at the very least) should trigger a reassessment of the priorities assigned.

Logic therefore dictates that the greatest possible efficiency in terms of results vs time taken is achieved by “front-loading” those items that experience shows can have this sort of serendipitous outcome.

This actually defines a couple of alternative problem-solving strategies that are worth understanding.

Game-changers first
There is a fine balance between dealing with the game changers and deciding exactly what you are going to need to do. If you actually find something that radically reshapes the problem – which won’t happen all the time – then you avoid wasting time breaking down the problem into detailed requirements only to have to redo it all; but if you don’t then your work on the game-changers is going to be less efficient than it could have been, so you end up wasting time that way. Which is the bigger risk?

Personally, I think that if you have any clue at all as to what the basic shape of the solution is going to be, then your game-changer efforts are not entirely blind choices – so, in this circumstance, doing the game-changers first is the better choice. If you are completely ignorant as to the nature of the solution, then this solution is not the best.

Game-changers after problem breakdown
That’s when this alternative is the better choice. Essentially, it can be summed up: get a rough idea of the answer, then work on anything that might offer a shortcut.

Game-changers as a cumulative priority item
And one final alternative to contemplate: consider all the game-changers to be a single confluent priority item, add their priorities together as noted previously, and use that value to determine where they fall in the task list.

Consequences & Repercussions

There’s still one more wrinkle to contemplate in this theoretical picture. If it’s wrong to consider tasks or partial solutions in isolation within a problem, it’s even more incorrect to ignore the fact that work done to solve one problem can also contribute to the solution of another. Some tasks can act as an investment in future problem-solving – whether we’re talking about PC choices in a game, or GM choices in creating an adventure, or in crafting a campaign. Ideally, it can be argued, you want all the work done in the past to come together at the end of the campaign to free the GM completely from the burdens of his role so that he can sit back and just enjoy it as much as the players should.

There are all sorts of theoretical ways in which this factor could be accommodated, but none of them are especially compelling. Ultimately, this is so dependant on specifics that it can’t be properly incorporated into a theoretical model – especially one that will never be used in real life.

Getting Practical

So, if it’s never going to be used, why did I bother putting a lot of effort into thinking about the theoretical analysis that I’ve just spent almost 2500 words explaining?

If a practical model doesn’t reflect the theory, there’s a great chance that the practical solution won’t work properly, or at all. Practicality may force a compromise, but you have to know which corners you are cutting, and why. Before I could offer the approaches that I have in mind, I wanted to be sure they worked – and I wanted to be able to explain why they worked :)

Practical Methods 1: Lists and scores

The first practical method involves making a list and doing some quick-and-dirty scoring to get a priority.

Step 1: Make the list

Make a list of all the steps and substeps involved in achieving a solution. Number the initial breakdown as a zero. For each item, list it in two entries – summary and detailed – if that seems appropriate. The exception is anything that you define as a possible game-changer which gets placed in it’s own sub-list immediately after the general breakdown, but numbered as though it were in the appropriate place on the list.

Not clear? Try the following example list:

0. Overall Idea

20. PC Involvement in Adventure

30. Adventure Breakdown – summary

31. Adventure Breakdown – Detailed

40. Locations – summary
41. Locations – detailed

42. Locations – Illustrations

50. Maps – General outline/Notes

51. Maps – detailed

60. NPCs involved – summary
61. NPCs involved – descriptions
62. NPCs involved – details

63. NPCs involved – illustrations

70. Props – General Outline
71. Props – construction

80. Player Handouts – General Outline
81. Player Handouts – creation

90. Campaign Reference – General Requirements
91. Campaign Reference – Outline

92. Campaign Reference – Creation

These 21 steps are the essential components of creating an adventure, an act that should be familiar to all of us. The list above has everything in its logical sequence. Each major adventure component starts with a “ten number” – “10, 20, 30, 40” and so on – while subsequent steps within that adventure component have been given numbers going up by 1 – “31, 41, 42”, and so on. “10” has been reserved for the potential Game Changers.

You might be wondering what “Campaign Reference” entails. This is for anything rules or world-related not specifically aimed at this particular adventure. It could be a new character class, a new NPC race, a new monster, a new magic item, a new piece of campaign history, a new gadget, or a change to the House Rules. The entire “Orcs and Elves” series falls into this category.

If I now extract all the things that I consider potential game changers and put them into their own category under the “10” entry, I get:

0. Overall Idea

10. Game-changers
11. (30) Adventure Breakdown – summary
12. (42) Locations – Illustrations
13. (50) Maps – General outline/Notes
14. (60) NPCs involved – summary
15. (63) NPCs involved – illustrations
16. (90) Campaign Reference – General Requirements
17. (91) Campaign Reference – Outline

20. PC Involvement in Adventure

31. Adventure Breakdown – Detailed

40. Locations – summary
41. Locations – detailed

51. Maps – detailed

61. NPCs involved – descriptions
62. NPCs involved – details

70. Props – General Outline
71. Props – construction

80. Player Handouts – General Outline
81. Player Handouts – creation

92. Campaign Reference – Creation

Step 2: Criticality Ranking

In each group of “10s”, starting with 20, assign a value to the highest-numbered item – do it with tally marks – that ranks them in order of criticality. High is more critical. How essential is this item to having the adventure (in this case) in a playable state?

In the case of our example, the entries to be listed are those numbered 00, 20, 31, 42, 51, 63, 71, 81, and 92.

Then do the items that precede these entries in each group; the only rule is that each one MUST be given a criticality score higher than, or equal to, it’s successor. Keep going until every item has a criticality rating.

0. Overall Idea IIII  IIII

10. Game-changers
11. (30) Adventure Breakdown – summary IIII III
12. (42) Locations – Illustrations III
13. (50) Maps – General outline/Notes IIII
14. (60) NPCs involved – summary IIII II
15. (63) NPCs involved – illustrations III
16. (90) Campaign Reference – General Requirements IIII II
17. (91) Campaign Reference – Outline IIII I

20. PC Involvement in Adventure II

31. Adventure Breakdown – Detailed IIII

40. Locations – summary IIII II
41. Locations – detailed III

51. Maps – detailed I

61. NPCs involved – descriptions IIII
62. NPCs involved – details III

70. Props – General Outline II
71. Props – construction I

80. Player Handouts – General Outline IIII II
81. Player Handouts – creation IIII I

92. Campaign Reference – Creation IIII

Step 3: Dependency

If an item is directly dependant on a previous item, add 2 to the parent item’s tally.

Add 2 to the tally of each item in the game-changing category.

Then arbitrarily increase the initial step (00) to match that of the highest item if it doesn’t already.

0. Overall Idea IIII  IIII  IIII  IIII  IIII III

10. Game-changers
11. (30) Adventure Breakdown – summary IIII  IIII  IIII  IIII  IIII III
12. (42) Locations – Illustrations IIII
13. (50) Maps – General outline/Notes IIII IIII
14. (60) NPCs involved – summary IIII  IIII IIII
15. (63) NPCs involved – illustrations IIII
16. (90) Campaign Reference – General Requirements IIII  IIII I
17. (91) Campaign Reference – Outline IIII  IIII

20. PC Involvement in Adventure II

31. Adventure Breakdown – Detailed IIII  IIII

40. Locations – summary IIII  IIII I
41. Locations – detailed III

51. Maps – detailed I

61. NPCs involved – descriptions IIII IIII
62. NPCs involved – details III

70. Props – General Outline IIII
71. Props – construction I

80. Player Handouts – General Outline IIII IIII
81. Player Handouts – creation IIII I

92. Campaign Reference – Creation IIII

Step 4: Reorder by Tally Count

The next step is to get each step into order by tally count. I’ve put the tally totals in brackets afterwards, because that makes it a little easier to reorder the list. At this point, you can also forget the old index numbers at the start of each entry. Just to avoid confusion, I will normally number the sorted steps starting at 100.

100. Overall Idea IIII  IIII  IIII  IIII  IIII III (28)
101. Adventure Breakdown – summary IIII  IIII  IIII  IIII  IIII III (28)
102. NPCs involved – summary IIII  IIII IIII (14)
103. Campaign Reference – General Requirements IIII  IIII I (11)
104. Locations – summary IIII  IIII I (11)
105. Campaign Reference – Outline IIII  IIII (10)
106. Adventure Breakdown – Detailed IIII  IIII (10)
107. Maps – General outline/Notes IIII IIII (9)
108. NPCs involved – descriptions IIII IIII (9)
109. Player Handouts – General Outline IIII IIII (9)
110. Player Handouts – creation IIII I (6)
111. Locations – Illustrations IIII (5)
112. NPCs involved – illustrations IIII (5)
113. Campaign Reference – Creation IIII (5)
114. Props – General Outline IIII (4)
115. Locations – detailed III (3)
116. NPCs involved – details III (3)
117. PC Involvement in Adventure II (2)
118. Maps – detailed I (1)
119. Props – construction I (1)

Step 5: Done!

Believe it or not, this incorporates almost everything discussed in the theory section – in a relatively simple and crude fashion. This particular set of instructions yields the “Game-changers after problem breakdown” strategy discussed earlier; it works if you have a rough idea of what the adventure is going to be about before you start. If you don’t, and want to employ the “game changers first” approach, simply skip the “arbitrary” renumbering of the old “00” item and place it immediately before the detailed adventure breakdown.

The result is a task list, in the order in which each task is to be carried out. You can simply tackle it in order until you run out of time, or you can use it to budget your available prep time, as you see fit.

Of course, this is a generic solution; in any particular real-world situation, some tasks may have different rankings because they have (in whole or in part) already been done in the creation of earlier adventures, or because you don’t perform any given step – not everyone will go looking for pictures to illustrate their NPCs, for example; they either have them already (because they are taking the NPC from an existing product) or they’ll do without and rely on narrative descriptions.

Practical Methods 2: The notes array

In some ways, an even simpler approach is to put each item on a card or post-it note and simply shuffle them down and across as necessary instead of fussing around with tallies. When I use this approach, the starting layout is always “tens down, ones across”, as shown by the illustration to the right. This naturally lines up dependencies to the left.

Then move game-changers to the left of their respective stacks to form a new column, move the “00” to the left or right of that (depending on whether you want to use the first or second of the strategies on offer). Close up any gaps by shifting cards to the left.

Once that’s done, order items in each column according to priority, moving any cards/notes to the right of the card whose order is being adjusted.

Finally, pick up the cards starting at the bottom right and working up each column before starting the next leftmost column. Once again, the result is a task list in order.

This approach has one big advantage – you can easily tweak the order. Working on an NPC might give you an idea for a location, or an event, or whatever – this permits you to shuffle things around to strike while the iron is hot.

Looking ahead to part three

Having completed our side-excursion into theory and emerged back into the realm of practical advice, it’s full-steam-ahead with more problem-solving techniques next time, as this series races to a conclusion!

In 1990 I was trained as a Safety Warden / OHAS representative for my then-employer. At the time, I was employed as a Computer Programmer and acting as a Systems Analyst for the commercial software systems for which my former department were responsible. Both aspects of this occupation taught me some key problem-solving tips and techniques that I continue to employ to this day in both everyday life and in gaming, both as a player and a GM. Today’s article will share some of the insights gleaned, and discuss how they apply to gameplay in an RPG. Some of my readers may weigh in with additional tips.

I’m going to try and impose some rationality to the sequence of presentation of these tips and techniques, but I expect that they might skip around a bit; this is my first attempt at trying to impose some structure on a fragmented and essentially disorganized confluence of training and experience.

Aim for the fire not the flame

When fighting a fire, the number one mistake that a lot of untrained people make is to aim for the visible flames. The problem is that this is not where the actual burning is taking place, so it does something between zero and squat. As a general rule of thumb (there are exceptions) you need to aim for whatever it is that is actually burning. Starting high makes it harder for the fire to spread, containing it; working your way lower uses material that’s already partially burned as a firebreak to prevent fresh breakouts.

There are analogies aplenty between this nugget of wisdom and every other problem you will ever face, and so you will find analogous pearls of wisdom scattered through any collection of worldly advice. Ultimately, when analyzed, they all boil down to “address the real problem and not the obvious consequences” – but I like the flavor of “Aim for the Fire, Not the Flame”, it makes this maxim easier to remember. While this is always excellent advice, it can also be a lot harder to put into practice than it first appears, because it assumes (a) that you can live with those obvious consequences long enough to actually address the real problem, (b) that you can identify the real problem, and (c) that there is something you can do about it. Nevertheless, it remains excellent advice in principle – and is the central starting point from which everything else in this article proceeds.

Understand your tools

Fire depends on a combination of three factors: Temperature, Fuel, and Oxygen. Take any one of these out of the situation and the fire goes out. Every extinguisher targets one or two of these elements. I mentioned exceptions in the preceding section; this is where these become important. A CO2 extinguisher does not work in the same way as a fire hose; the CO2 operates by smothering the fire and by slightly cooling whatever it hits, in other words targeting the Oxygen component primarily and the thermal component to a lesser extent. The fire hose fires water, which frequently never reaches the actual burning material, being converted into steam – but in the process it sucks a lot of the temperature out of the fire. The closer to the seat of the flame, the more temperature there is for the water to carry away, and the more effective the extinguisher. A fine spray dissipates this effect and renders the process ineffectual, you need to concentrate the water stream so that enough of it reaches the target to do the job. Chemical Powder Extinguishers generally operate by blanketing the burning material and preventing oxygen from reaching the flame – again, you need to aim for what’s actually burning rather than shooting the material through the visible flames and having it fall beyond the actual fire.

The basic lesson here is: in order to use them most effectively, you have to understand your tools.

The applicability of this lesson to other types of problems should also be obvious. Before you can decide what to do, you have to identify what you can do.

Understand your situation

The other type of exception stems from your situation. When dealing with a burning petrol spill, for example, hitting it with a lot of water just spreads it around – the oil-based petroleum floats on top. You need to attack the fire differently. The same thing goes for exotic fires involving compounds that react with water – you can make things worse by using the wrong tool for the job. Another obvious example involves fighting an electrical fire with water. It’s a well-known maxim that electricity and water don’t mix to anyone’s benefit!

Once you know what your tools are, and how they work, understanding your situation lets you choose the right tool for the job, and apply it in the right way.

The application of this principle to other sorts of problems should be fairly obvious.

Manage symptoms, cure causes

If it must be conceded that “Aim for the fire, not the flame” is all well and good in theory (when employed as an analogy), but is not always practical because of the significance of the possible “flames”, then something slightly more sophisticated needs to substituted for those occasions when the consequences are too urgent to be ignored. I’ve drawn this metaphor from first aid / medicine, and don’t remember where I first encountered it – but it fits the bill perfectly.

Don’t try to “solve” the problem of the consequences, look for a way to minimize and manage them – this will usually be quicker and easier than the former, anyway. The consequences will stop being getting worse once the real problem is dealt with, the initial objective is to gain the time to do so.

In game terms, I find this is useful advice in all sorts of situations – everything from relations with players, to rules problems, to social, economic, and political problems in-game.

Things can get more complicated when the “symptoms” function as “causes” of secondary problems, but the general principle remains.

What don’t you know?

Whenever confronted by a problem, asking yourself this question is rarely a waste of time. I want to say never, but I’m sure that someone will speak up with an exception if I do so! Having awareness of the boundaries of your ignorance means that you always know when you are extrapolating problems and solutions into the unknown, where that ignorance can subvert your intentions.

In general, to get to grips with the problem at hand, you often have to make assumptions about something that’s in your area of ignorance. If you know that this is occurring, you can at least watch for divergences between what you are expecting to occur and what actually occurs that help illuminate the validity of the assumptions and enable you to alter them before it becomes too late to alter your plan of attack.

Always, on the heels of this question, follow two others.

What do you need to know?

In firefighting terms, this may be anything from where the gas shut-off valves are in a building to what it is that is actually burning – and what sort of gasses are being given off as a result. Are there people inside? Where? What’s the shortest route to them? What’s the safest route to them? And so on and so forth. I always remember the scene from “The Towering Inferno” in which Steve McQueen is being questioned as to the tenants that have moved into the building and asks “What difference does that make?” – and cops an earful in response.

In more general terms, once you have identified your areas of ignorance, it is generally useful to identify any key pieces of information that you need to be sure of an effective solution to the problem. At the very least, this permits a search for clues to that information before you reach the point of no return. The more specific the answer is to this question, the better.

Still more important, this focuses any intelligence-gathering into the specific areas that are most significant.

What can you do in the meantime?

If it’s genuinely the case that you can’t commit to an actual solution to the problem because there is some key information needed (for example, “who is responsible?”), rather than simply sitting back and waiting for the starter’s whistle, try to identify something you can do in the meantime. This is especially important when public confidence is a key problem – sitting back and doing nothing is a sure recipe for people who know even less than you do to start improvising their own solutions and a degeneration into chaos and anarchy. Do something about the lack of information and, in the meantime, show the flag and been seen to be doing something about the situation (even if you know that it will ultimately be futile). It’s better to spin your wheels in public than to be conspicuously inactive.

What can be done right now?

An even more pointed form of the same lesson. But there’s a caveat when applying this to situations in which other people are involved – you must always acknowledge the possibility that whatever can be done right now is exactly what whoever is behind the real problem wants you to do. That doesn’t necessarily mean not doing it – but it can be a clue in itself as to what’s really going on.

The other caveat to be mentioned in this context is the misdirected action fallacy (I’m not sure of the exact name it’s been given), which reads “Something has to be done. This is something that can be done. Therefore we must do this.” As long as it is realized that the immediate activity is at best a band-aid on the real problem, and needs to actually work to alleviate the situation with which you are confronted rather than concealing it, there is no problem – anything else leaves one open to the trap of thinking that the real problem has been solved, at least for now, when in fact it has not.

A temporary ad-hoc solution sooner is better than a lasting fix delivered one week too late

After so many maxims emphasizing the value of a deliberate, intentional solution, it’s time to even the balance a little. There are time when it’s better to act in ignorance and pick up the pieces afterwards. The key questions are always

• How long will this take?,
• How long do we have?, and
• How much of my/our time and resources have to be devoted to this to make it work?

If the lasting fix will require anything even close to the time available, there is a risk that delays and setbacks will prevent it being ready in time. Choose actions and responses accordingly.

Don’t rely on temporary fixes to solve the real problem

As is often the case, there is a caveat, or in this case, a lesson that can be learned from mistakes of the past, and it’s summed up in the headline above. A temporary fix buys you time and freedom to act – nothing more. A related trap is promoting the temporary fix as “the solution to the problem” in the minds of others – doing so means that public priorities will seize apon the problem next most in serious need of a quick fix, and demand that receive priority over a lasting solution to the first problem. In the long run, this malaise affects almost every government, especially as they approach the end of their natural terms in office and start looking tired and inflexible. Management, or government, becomes all about dancing from one emergency to another and one more quick-fix.

This doesn’t really cause serious trouble until one of those “quick fixes” doesn’t work, and what was an emergency blows up into a full crisis – and those responsible are out of ideas.

Ultimately, all this boils down to an awareness of the real effectiveness of the quick fix, and neither under- nor over-selling it.

A general solution modified to suit a specific situation

Past experience is priceless, but ignorance can be equally valuable. The more past experience you have, the greater the number of specific problems and solutions you have encountered in the past; and, if you have learned from these properly, the more general solutions you will have developed which can be used as outlines to the solution of new problems. I once heard the following statement in reference to Formula 1 engineering, though it has wider application: “Ignorance innovates, experience educates”. Robert A Heinlein was fond of describing “The Book” (in a military context) as “Largely a collection of crazy stunts that worked”. Experience enables you to arrive at a workable solution more quickly and accurately, but it is inherently conservative, focused on what worked in the past. When you don’t know something’s impossible, it becomes possible to innovate and uncover a new solution – regardless of the success or failure of that solution, it then gets added to the experience bank of the conservatives for future reference. I don’t know how often supervillains and would-be Evil Masterminds have moaned “Lord save me from gifted amateurs” or words to that effect, but I’m sure it would be more often than most people think!

Prioritizing

Life would be so simple if problems came at you one at a time, with sufficient intervals in between to permit lasting solutions. It’s never like that in reality. And that requires prioritization of the problems. Successful prioritization is an art form in and of itself – it’s too complex a subject, and too full of “fuzzy edges” to be considered a science. In fact, it’s so complex an issue that I’m going to devote the next part of this article to this subject specifically before returning to some more general problem-solving advice in part three….

Warning PG-13 content

It’s been suggested that I should advise readers that some of the discussion that follows touches on topics of a mature nature and may not be suitable for thos under the age of 13. Children should consult their parents before reading this article. Personally, I think most children these days are well aware of the issues, though they may not understand them, and I went to considerable effort to adopt a non-partisan and unbiased approach to the topics in question, clearly indicating when I was voicing a personal opinion. But make your own judgments to suit your own circumstances.

Custom Worlds and Populations

I’m a strong believer in the principle that each campaign should have its own unique game world, or should extend and expand on the established game world in the event of a sequel campaign set in the same adventuring environment.

The Fumanor Example

The first Fumanor Campaign established a vast human Kingdom in all but name, recovering from an apocalyptic turn of events roughly a century earlier. In truth, this had started as a Barony, and the political usage had not yet caught up with the reality as it had expanded. It had now grown too large for effective central administration under the baronial model; it needed to create a new upper level to the political hierarchy and subdivide itself. Along the way it introduced variants on a number of other races common to modern roleplaying, but these were all fringe elements to the primary human-dominated setting.

The second Fumanor Campaign added detail to the political, social, religious, and spiritual tapestry of that human not-yet Kingdom, and introduced more substance to the variant Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, etc, while introducing variants on Ogres, Minotaurs, Dragons, Spiders, and Trolls, amongst others.

The third Fumanor Campaign brought the internal and external pressures to a head, explained the hidden truth behind the apocalypse, and split the Barony into three Kingdoms. It expanded still further on the theology, and revealed the meaning behind a number of concurrent plot threads that had been present from day One. It added variants on Treants, a desert-dwelling human society completely distinct from that which had been established, a reinvented Fey, and a new self-aware variant of Golem, and a race of sentient illusions.

The fourth and fifth campaigns are currently running concurrently. The fourth has introduced an Empire of Undead, added considerable depth to the Elves, Ogres, Drow, and Orcs, and much more. The Orcs and Elves series extends and expands on the non-human history and culture as a prelude to the second half of the fourth campaign (and an essential ingredient in the conclusion of the first half).

The Fifth has explored in greater depth many of the elements introduced in the third, exploring the difference between the religion of the realms and the theology, and detailed the variants on Goblins and Dragons that were present back in the first campaign but which didn’t figure heavily in the plot at the time.

None of these societies were static; each new Campaign brought refinement and added depth.

The How-to made easy in a nutshell

Sometimes it can seem like a lot of work, but it can also be a lot of fun – and is usually a lot less work than it first appears, because I don’t try and do it all at once.

Make an interesting change in one race. Modify the world and its history to accommodate the difference, and the way it would impact on interactions with other races, by going through these items one at a time. Then go through each of those changes and look for consequences and ripple effects, and adjust to accommodate those. Once you have beaten everything into shape, make a change to another race, and repeat. Tailor each of the races to suit the overall campaign idea you have, or let a campaign idea emerge naturally and simply concentrate on making each race different, plausible, and interesting. Really, that’s all there is to it – at least in theory. Practice can be quite a different kettle of fish, and it can always be useful to have a source of different ideas to spark your own imagination.

A Dwarvish Example

You can get some idea of how this process works by reading Creating Alien Characters: Expanding the ‘Create A Character Clinic’ To Non-Humans, where I offer a unique variation on Dwarves of my own – one that starts with the abilities that they are reputed to have in D&D/Pathfinder, finds a way for those to make sense in terms of game physics, and then tracks the resulting changes back through other aspects of the race and to the logical impacts on their society and culture.

The Unconventional Dwarf at first glance

So you can see why I might be interested in a product like “The Unconventional Dwarf” that offers eight unique and detailed original variations on your bog-standard dwarf, plus an in-context look at the “Conventional” Dwarf.

The details of each variation are broken into sections; some vary from entry to entry, but the ones common to all deal with:

• Physiology
• Society
• History
• Faith and Magic
• Warcraft, Arms, and Armor
• Variants and Story Hooks (omitted from the chapter on Hive Dwarves).

Some races have other sections as well, further delineating the variation. As you would expect from something with this level of content, this is not a small supplement. Including License and Covers, we’re talking about 94 pages.

What’s within those covers? Well, let’s start by misquoting the back-page blurb (and making it more accurate in the process, I hope):

DWARVES! Those ale-quaffing, axe-wielding, armor-smithing, mine-digging, treasure-grubbing, tough old cantankerous skinflints. You know dwarves, right?

Think again.

Within these pages you will find dwarven scholars who study the language of creation itself, dwarven orators who live and die by the stories they tell, dwarven soldiers who have conquered – and united – most of the known world, and dwarven shape-shifters who come in peace from the cold reaches between the stars.

There are dwarves who fight desperate underwater battles against merfolk, who shave the beards off of their men to humble them, who revel in the power and perfection of their own bodies, and who curse the fickle nature of the common cabbage.

So trade in your battleaxe for a scythe, gladius, or sharpened space, swap out that horned helmet for a jaunty feathered hat or a skullcap, and leave that mineshaft behind. Tropical islands, barren scrub, and Zultur Milati (the living cosmos) await.

Are you interested yet? You should be!

Click to open the Author & Artist Bios

The Authors

The Unconventional Dwarf is a collaboration between 9 people – writers, authors, and artists – under the editorial guidance of the first of the nine, Tof Eklund. Between them, they cover the entire spectrum of gaming experience from new fan to old hand. What they share is a passion for the hobby itself and a love of originality. The full credits are:

• Series Editor – Tof Eklund
• Concept – Tof Eklund and Kevin Archibald
• Contributors – Amy Walraven, Jeremiah Smith, Rhiannon Reyes, Tof Eklund, Malcom Dale, Sean Boyce, and Kevin Archibald
• Art – Jennifer Brown, Malcolm Dale, Jelani Parham
• Cover – Rob Gee
• Layout and Design – Josh M. Lenius
• Editing – Judy Spring and Angi Gray

You may have heard some of these names before, or they might all be new to you. In most cases, this is their first foray into published game product. Suffice it to say that they all appear to have done a competent job! Tof was kind enough to excerpt the biographies; rather than quoting them in full, I’m including them as an attachment.

The Unconventional Dwarf – The opening Salvos

If it seems like I’m paying relatively little attention to the variants themselves, that’s no accident. There are two reasons for this: First, you can get the full details just by from RPG Now. The PDF costs US$9.99 and the Softcover US$14.99 (plus shipping) or you can get both for just US$19.99 – but these are discounted prices and may not last, so get in quickly!

The second reason is that I want to focus my attention on the opening sections of the book for a while.

The Introductory Note – a jaded gamer

The first thing you find when you start reading the e-book is the introduction by Tof. A lot of people skip these, just as a lot of people never watch the DVD extras that are practically ubiquitous these days, and both are missing out on valuable information and insights.

Tof starts with a lament for the sense of wonder that RPGs and The Lord Of The Rings conjured for him when he was in elementary school. He blames this on blatantly derivative works that feel like “Tolkien recycled and ‘pumped up’ with bigger swords, showier magic, and dark lords of darker darkness”, the worlds of Arneson and Gygax “fetishized, over-refined, represented as new”. Aside from loving the phrase, dark lords of darker darkness, I have to say that I disagree with his diagnosis, if not with the symptoms he identifies.

The attribution of blame ignores two factors; the first is that when first encountered, everything is (by definition) new and exciting; you can never fully recapture that compound of innocence and naivety, and everything you encounter thereafter will always seem that little less exciting in comparison. That’s why first loves are always special to us, no matter how badly the relationship ends.

What Tof describes is everything that was wrong with the D&D movie – and the biggest complaint from gamers that I remember hearing when it first came out was how limp and uninspired it was. It felt cobbled together from D&D clichés, a thousand games reduced to their lowest common denominator and assembled into a mélange that barely managed to be internally-consistent.

The second factor is the impact of gosh-wow special effects on imaginations and expectations, a subject I’ve discussed before – initially in Are Special Effects Killing Hollywood? and subsequently in an update to that article, The Gap In Reality: Immersion in an RPG Environment.

The Introductory Note – The Flawed Legacy

Tof then continues,

Then there’s what’s left out: the weak points in the works of the founders are still there. Oversimplified morality, racial hierarchies, the divine right of kings; these backwards notions are taken for granted. Female characters are more represented in fantasy today than in Tolkien, but that “representation” tends to be in a chain-mail bikini, and there are generally no gays, lesbians, or other queers. Settings and cultures are relentlessly Western European, with occasional tokens from the “exotic” and “barbaric” east.
    Oh, and every adventurer is an orphan.

There’s a lot to be said in reference to these specific criticisms. Some are correct and eminently justified; others are misapplied, some are unreasonable expectations in the context of gaming (at least in my opinion), and some are just plain wrong (again in my opinion). I’m going to address each of these complaints, but in a slightly different order.

Female representation:
Let’s start with something we both agree on. Absolutely right, but popular media always lag behind contemporary social thought. It wasn’t much more than 100 years ago that women first got the right to vote (kudos to the Kiwis for being the first to embrace female suffrage). Prior to WWII, women were still repressed socially, confined to the roles defined by a Victorian cultural ethos. Post-WWII, it was known that women could hold any job going – but doing so was socially taboo and frowned apon. Change in this attitude was gradual over the next 25-35 years – and even in the 80s, there were social stigma attached to female executives and CEOs. To some extent, these attitudes persist to this day, but they are fading. Nevertheless, issues like wage inequality and glass ceilings are still hot topics.

Tolkien was born before any of this progress had taken place, and he barely an adult when suffrage began to seep through the western world. The Lord Of The Rings was written & published in a time still emerging from that Victorian ethos. The roles it provides for women are a representation of the popular opinion of its era in most respects, slightly conservative in some respects and slightly progressive in others.

The other elements which fantasy gaming derive from are historical, western medieval in fact. Attitudes to women were even more restrictive. From the time of its first publication, D&D has struggled to dance on the tightrope between historical accuracy, Tolkien-derived fantasy elements, and contemporary social attitudes. With the coming of 3.x and Pathfinder, bias against females was taken out of the rules systems, a significant step forwards; but both still reflect the 1980s-1990s attitude that a female leader had to be “Butch” to succeed.

There is an inherent generation gap involved in all social progress. Generation #1 accepts something in principle. Generation #2, raised in the atmosphere engendered by Generation #1, acknowledges the gap between reality and principle, and strives to make what has been accepted “in principle” attainable “in theory”, removing the practical and legal impediments that create that gap. Generation #3, raised in an atmosphere where the principle is attainable in theory, notes the gap between reality and what should be attainable in theory, and strives to remove the social barriers that prevent theory from becoming reality. With Generation #4, a few pioneers actually take up that opportunity, but in order to compete with regressed counterparts, are forced to mimic them. Only with Generation #5, raised in a social environment in which the achievements of those pioneers are taken for granted, does it become possible for the original problem to start becoming a non-issue. Society is only just getting to that point now when it comes to gender equality, and there are still gaps to be addressed.

You don’t generally get to make a substantial literary contribution until you’re in your mid-to-late twenties if not your mid-to-late thirties. So the printed word in any mass-market context is always going to be thirty years behind the contemporary attitude unless the author makes a deliberate effort to be “hip” and “modern”. Media does, so it is usually a little ahead of the curve; RPGs are nerdy, so they tend to be a little behind the curve. So, here we are in 2013. Thirty years ago, it was 1983. Female characters in games can now do anything a male character can do, but to really compete with the men, they still have to adopt a particularly masculine attitude. Society might be entering Generation 5, but movies & TV shows with a female lead are just entering Generation 4. And RPGs are still only approaching that point.

The rules changes I mentioned clearly make 3.x analogous to Generation 2. Pathfinder carries the hobby to Generation 3. Tof is clearly advocating the need for someone to step up and lead the hobby into a new Generation, though he may not have thought of it in those terms.

Absence of sexual alternatives:
I described the social phenomenon in deliberately generic terms because it applies to more than gender equality, it is true of virtually every form of social progress, from racial equality to the acceptance of “alternative” lifestyles – and I’m not talking about hippies. While gay leading men may now be accepted, how many leading roles are openly gay? What was the general social attitude toward these groups back in 1983-84? Here’s a clue: In January 1984, Queen released the single Radio Gaga. They were still months away from the cross-dressing filmclip, “I Want To Break Free”. While speculation was rife, Freddie Mercury had not publicly admitted his sexual orientation. He still had more than seven years to live.

It follows that hoping for anything even approaching a modern attitude to this subject is almost certainly going to be hoping in vain.

But there is a secondary factor: once again, we face that same tightrope walk between historical foundations and a contemporary audience. Even disregarding the Western European question for the moment, what was the attitude toward alternative orientations in medieval China? In Africa? In Egypt? In Hawaii? Amongst the Norse? The Celts? The Visigoths? The French? I’m not singling anyone out – it doesn’t matter where you point to on the globe or the history books, it won’t even be mentioned unless it’s being condemned in a Holy Book. That’s why the modern attitude is considered “modern”. So hoping for anything different in any setting which is not explicitly modern is once again almost certainly doomed to be a let-down.

And a tertiary one. It must be remembered that the target market for most RPGs have been the 13+ age group, not the 18+ age group. That carries an implication counter to adult topics such as sexuality. Almost everything is either going to be G- or PG-Rated, and those ratings are fundamentally incompatible with topics like sexual orientation, at least in terms of dealing with the subject seriously. Society is only just learning how to talk about this stuff at an adult level, never mind how it should be represented at a younger level.

Will RPGs ever get to a place where sexual orientation can be dealt with in an age-appropriate but mature and respectful way? Certainly. But I don’t think it’s less than a decade away. I therefore don’t consider it appropriate to criticize products of the last 20 years for not being in advance of where we, as a society, are now.

Oversimplified morality:
I both agree and disagree with this complaint. That’s not being equivocal; it’s acknowledging that there are two different standards at play. A simplified, even over-simplified, morality makes the game accessible to a younger audience – remember who the general target market is? At the same time, as players and GMs mature, this is almost certainly the first thing that they look to change and explore. That’s why Campaign Mastery has a five-part series dedicated to the subject of that “oversimplified morality”: Focusing On Alignment, in which the subject is explored in detail, starting with an impassioned arguement for doing away with that ‘oversimplified morality’ altogether.

Racial hierarchies:
It’s not entirely clear what Tof was referring to with this complaint. At first I thought one thing, and then I thought another. I finally came to the conclusion that he’s talking about the assumption that humans will dominate the fantasy world. Again, I’m slightly ambivalent on the subject. I consider there to be nothing wrong with a human-dominated reality within a fantasy novel or RPG; what I complain about (and what I suspect Tof is also complaining about) is that this is the default assumption in too many cases; and because that is not questioned by people, the assumption perpetuates itself. In my games, every race is dominant within their own environment. Dwarves in their tunnels, Elves in their forests, or whatever. What gets interesting is one a representative is taken out of that comfort zone, or when representatives of a race equally at home in that environment move in. Why should Elven politics, or Dwarven politics, be any less convoluted than historical human politics? Then layer on top the potential for inter-species and inter-racial complexities, stir vigorously, and hand it to an unsuspecting player…

Western European -derived Settings & Cultures and Tokens from the “exotic” and “barbaric” east and The divine right of kings:
Three complaints for the price of one! There are lots of good reasons for Western Europe to be the common foundation of most fantasy/RPGs. Accessibility to the reader. Level of knowledge available. Contextually familiar, connecting with millennia of folklore, myth and legend. Finally, the majority of Fantasy/RPG authors and players are North American, and the background of that nation is a Western European history (for the most part) – so a Western European foundation draws on what they have already been taught. But even beyond those arguements against this particular criticism, there are a number of examples that simply don’t fit this mould. Bushido, the RPG. The Daughter/Servant/Mistress of Empire trilogy. The “RPG” background story of the first three Dream Park novels. If you can’t find Fantasy novels and RPGs that aren’t derived from Western European society, you aren’t looking hard enough.

Naturally, the Western European attitude to ‘Barbarians from the East’ is also part and parcel of this foundation.

And, of course, until the American Revolutionary War, the Divine Right of Kings was inextricably part of Western Societies, and had been since the Roman Empire – or perhaps it stretches back to the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt? If your game is derived from virtually any Western European civilization, the Divine Right of a ruler to rule is going to be inherent. If your game is not, it may not be. It’s all part of the one simple package.

I think the real problem is that the most popular RPGs don’t draw on singular societies, but on some fictitious homogenized bastard child of many. Put your history books in a blender and press “High”.

Bottom line: if you want to play a game in which a modern attitude to this, and many of the other topics discussed above, then play d20 Modern, or X-files, or something Sci-Fi. Everything else is going to have to compromise in order to balance on that tightrope.

Every adventurer is an orphan:
Which brings me to Tof’s final complaint. As I started, so I end – there is absolutely no good reason for such limited creativity, so in this I would be in complete agreement with Tof – except that I don’t see this phenomenon at all. On the contrary, most of the players I know desperately want the resources and heirlooms that having a family in back of them brings to the table. My problem is usually that they all want their parents to be nobles, or court advisors, or something. Everyone wants to be the son of the King (third-born, preferably), no-one wants to be the son of the turnip farmer.

A Hidden assumption
Of course, there is a hidden assumption that undermines all of the counter-arguements I’ve offered, and Tof’s complaints as well. Humans have certain social issues – who says that Dwarves (or any other species) will have the same social problems? The authors have actually hinted at this with a reference to Dwarven Women and to the unconventional solution to gender issues on Diskworld by Terry Pratchett – but unless you happen to have read Guards Guards recently, this reference will probably go over the head of the average reader.

I don’t want to give the impression that I am unsympathetic to, or unsupportive of, the personal beliefs that Tof brings to the table, because that is very definitely not the case. I just don’t think that he has correctly identified the cause of the malaise that he feels toward modern fantasy and RPGs, and the consequence is that his solution is misapplied. Tof is deliberately placing himself at the cutting edge of social progress in RPGs, a pioneer for the personal philosophy and cause espoused in the introduction and in his biographic notes – so while his solution may fall short of achieving the social awakening desired, it will be another step on the road. But people won’t buy a product simply because it advances a philosophic cause they are barely coming to grips with; to be successful, the product needs to be useful in and of itself, with the ideals behind it a secondary element. The question therefore needs to be asked: does The Unconventional Dwarf stand up to scrutiny when divorced from that progressive social cause?

The ‘Unconventional’ Solution

The short answer is a resounding ‘yes’. While I might not agree with Tof on the reasons for creating a product like The Unconventional Dwarf, I absolutely agree with the approach taken. Boiled down to it’s simplest elements, the writers start by stripping out anything that’s even vaguely Tolkienesque and retreating back to the original myths and legends apon which Tolkien himself drew, creating a variant on the result based on other cultural concepts and contexts, and then putting back only those “conventional” elements that fit the resulting picture. There’s no little irony (given some of the complaints discussed above) that the foundation of the “Conventional Dwarf” is Western European in nature!

In other words, they have employed exactly the same technique as the one I advocated earlier, and have presented the results as standalone societies with which to replace the traditional view of RPG Dwarves in your campaign.

The biggest flaw in the resulting product (and its not a very big one) is that by restricting themselves to historical societies as their foundations, they are confining the scope of what they can achieve, and ignoring possibilities such as the one given in the article cited earlier under the heading of “A Dwarvish Example”. The outcomes that are presented in The Unconventional Dwarf fit perfectly the prescription that I gave earlier in this review: they are all different, plausible, and interesting. But does it really matter why it was done if the results are so useful for the purpose intended and so well-executed?

What more do you want?

Even more unconventional?

It doesn’t say so outright anywhere in the supplement that I could spot, but Tof’s title suggests that other “unconventionals” will follow. To get confirmation of this, one need only visit at Tof’s website or check out the series’ Facebook page. But, also presumably, that will only happen if The Unconventional Dwarf is a success. I hope that this review helps make that happen; I’m looking forward to reading what they come up with next. For my money, the most clichéd race in FRP are Elves – that’s why I worked so hard on them in the Fumanor campaign…

Since I moved a couple of years ago, I have dedicated the larger bedroom at my new apartment to the purpose of being a game-room/library, and it’s there that the bulk of my gaming now takes place. My location is conveniently close to snack shops and several sources of takeaway food, and the players have to pass several more on their way here, so we are well catered-for. If there was more/better parking available, all my games would probably take place there for one simple reason: It’s quiet.

But once a month, I co-GM the Adventurer’s Club campaign, and one of the players uses his own car to get around instead of public transport, and since parking at my apartment is limited, for that campaign I return to where 90% of my GMing took place prior to the move: A game store which offers free facilities for games, and which on any given weekend, has 20 or more CCG games in progress, and at least 1 other RPG campaign (sometimes 2 or 3), all in a relatively crowded space the size of a typical classroom. Crowding 100-120 people into a space that small (including hangers-on and kibitzers) makes for a particularly challenging gaming environment.

I’ve seen games being run at conventions a number of times, both in person and in photographs, and each game has at least 50% more space in the typical con games-room. On one occasion, we were reduced to playing one RPG at one end of a 12-foot table and another at the far end, but things are rarely that confined. It’s a far cry from our previous facilities, where we had one, perhaps two games at most, in each of a number of individual rooms, and it’s an arrangement that has given me some pointed lessons in how to game in a crowded, noisy setting. Today’s article is to share some of the secrets and techniques that I have gleaned over several years of gaming in that crowded environment.

Use Two Tables if you can

Most of the tables that are good for CCG games are longer and narrower than the typical kitchen/dining-room table. Two tables side-by-side make an effective table-space that is closer to square and which leaves room in the centre of the table for maps, game props, etc. Without this measure, there’s no space for these items without making spaces by reducing the number of players.

The shortest distance between players and GMs is the right distance

There are usually several different arrangements of seating possible. Having tried just about all of them, I can state unequivocally that reducing distance from GM to players to an absolute minimum is the most critical need you can face. Just about everything else can and should be compromised to achieve this outcome.

Compromise on Personal Space

In particular, everyone will usually have to compromise on the amount of personal space they have available, because there simply isn’t enough to go around. You don’t have room for a character sheet AND dice AND a rules book AND a soft drink AND a space to actually roll dice. Put the rules book away and have one copy in common at the table. Put the character sheet in front of you and roll dice on it.

There are more physical-environment tips for consideration in another article, The Arcane Implications of Seating at the Game Table.

Compromise on GM Resources

To GM in such narrow confines is challenging, to say the least. The GM will have more resources that he needs to deploy (including the community copy of the rules). Ideally, the GM should have as much space as 2-3 players, and will often STILL feel cramped. To make this work, it will be necessary to compromise on the resources that you bring to the table. You can have a reference library – but it should contain only the items that are likely to be critical. If you don’t bring something that is needed, wing it. Big binders are a no-no, to be avoided wherever possible. Your entire adventure should occupy a single stack of pages. Don’t expect to be able to read it AND take notes or roll dice at the same time. Battlemats and Miniatures are a luxury, to be used only when absolutely necessary; quick hand-drawn maps on a pad, in which players make marks with a pen or pencil to show their positions, take up 1/4 the space.

Voice Maintenance

Expect to have to speak at high volume all day. I can’t speak to anyone else, but my throat is raw and my voice obliterated for two days after a five-to-six hour gaming session. Or, at least, it was until I discovered the wonders of a suitable rehydrating sports drink. The one that I have found most effective by miles is Poweraid Blue aka “Mountain Blast”, but this might not be available (or might have a different formula) elsewhere in the world – so be prepared to experiment until you find one that works for you. Note that other flavors of Poweraid are less effective, and so are other energy drinks that I have tried – so subtle differences can have a big impact.

Sipping such a sports drink (cold) is better than anesthetic throat lozenges or any pharmaceutical sore-through treatments that I have come across.

It probably doesn’t help that I don’t need to use my voice much during the week, so I may be more susceptible to this problem than other GMs. But everyone should benefit to at least some degree.

Exhaustion Is A Factor

Listening closely to what someone else is saying, when in a crowded, noisy situation, is exhausting. Expect your players to get tired. Creativity can suffer, and nerves can fray. Make allowances accordingly.

GMing in such an environment is much harder than playing. It’s easily twice as much work as GMing in a quieter situation, which is already several times as much work as playing. Prepare yourself.

In particular, make sure that you are as well-rested as you can possibly be. It’s often better to skip the last half-hour of game prep the night before in favor of a half-hour’s extra sleep.

A related tip is to avoid caffeinated drinks in the early part of the game session. You can have one before you start to boost alertness, but then no more until at least half-way through the game session; you can build up a short-term tolerance that makes these less effective when you really need them, otherwise. It’s as though you only have so much capacity for chemical stimulation of this sort; so target the periods when you know your energy levels will be flagging.

Finally, allow yourself some wind-down / recuperation time after a game session in a crowded, noisy environment, before operating a motor vehicle. No game is well-served by the GM, or one of the players, being in an auto accident.

A Quiet Place

No matter where you are, there will usually be somewhere that’s quieter than the general noise (rest rooms are not suitable). Make an active effort to find such a place and decompress. Just being in a noisy environment is stressful, and is one of the causes of the exhaustion I was just going on about. When you find your creativity waning, when it becomes an effort to comprehend the quite straightforward question you’ve just been asked, or when events in the game have just taken a left-turn into the unknown, take a break and go to such a place. Heck, I’ve found that even busy street traffic is quieter than the wall of sound produced by a number of simultaneous games.

The reason for this is simple: In an RPG, it’s normal for only one person to speak at once. In a CCG (or any beer-and-pretzels game, for that matter) it’s not unusual for there to be several conversations taking place simultaneously. And there’s an exponential factor involved – the more conversations, the louder each conversationalist has to speak to be heard by the other participants. That in turn requires everyone else to raise their conversation volume. There is a natural tendency for these environments to progress to full volume.

Regular, Longer Breaks

In a quiet gaming environment, I expect to take 5-10 minute breaks every 90-120 minutes. In a crowded environment, just getting up from the table can inconvenience others, so there is a natural tendency to take more infrequent breaks, even though the noise makes the need for these breaks more frequent. Add an extra 5-10 minutes to the break length when you do take them in order to compensate.

Air-Con Calamities: Dress Appropriately

It’s astonishing how much a hundred people in a confined environment can raise the temperature. Adding thermal stress on top of everything else can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, then jumps up and down on it out of sheer malice. T-shirts with light jackets are appropriate attire in a winter situation – with a second, heavier, jacket for when you go back outdoors. As a general rule of thumb, I dress for conditions 8°C (14°F) warmer than the outside temperature, then cover up with as much additional, removable, clothing as may be needed for outside conditions. But that’s for 60+ people – adjust accordingly.

There are times when this overestimates the amount of heat generated, and times when it underestimates it – but it’s a good rule of thumb.

The heat generated by a large group of people puts huge strain on air-conditioning systems, never mind the increased likelyhood that there will be one person in the crowd who is too lazy or forgetful to close the door. Expect the air con to break down and take that into account when choosing your apparel. You can always choose not to take something off, but there’s a limit to how much you can remove in public.

Adjustments In Style: Shorter narrative passages

Writing narrative for reading in silence is quite different to writing narrative for reading aloud. You will take your eyes off the page more often and look elsewhere – at a player, at a die roll, at a notepad, or whatever. If your narrative is in one big block, it can be hard to find exactly where you were up to. For public delivery, then, shorter passages work a lot more effectively. I will sometimes put a tick next to a passage when I’ve read it to make life easier.

Build in more opportunities, brief intervals, for the players to react. This gives you natural break points in your narrative.

Adjustments In Style: Simpler narrative passages

Truncate your vocabulary. Longer words are more easily confused. If you must use them in order to deliver flavor, tone, or mood, put them in a note to the player(s) where they can read them instead of having to interpret some mumble. Instead of saying something like “truncate your vocabulary”, tell the players “he uses longer words but the meaning is ‘use shorter words'”.

Adjustments In Style: Forget Nuanced Delivery

I love using variations in vocal delivery to deliver nuance, mood, and characterization. In a crowded situation, you can forget 90% of that. The simple need to deliver your communications clearly requires greater volume, and that reduces the scope for variation. Expect instead to explicitly state what the mood and characterization are supposed to be. “In a creepy voice, he says…” “He winks seductively and whispers…” “Her voice lisps strangely…”

Adjustments In Style: Overact even more than usual

GMs usually overact a little, just to be sure that the message they are trying to convey is received correctly by the players. Be ready to take it up several notches when in a crowded situation. There is a natural tendency to be more conservative in such situations for a lot of people; learn not to give in to it.

Adjustments In Style: Read More Loudly

Most people, when they are reading something word for word, speak more quietly than when they are actually talking to someone. I attribute this, at least to some extent, to the absence of audio-visual feedback from the people you are speaking to – you’re too busy keeping your eyes on the page. Make a deliberate effort to speak more loudly and more concisely when reading aloud. Presumably, the information is important or it wouldn’t be there in the first place – so treat it accordingly.

Stretch

My final advice for gaming in a crowded, noisy environment is this: stretch every now and then. It’s normal to be more confined and cramped in such circumstances that you would normally be, and that makes many of the problems addressed by the preceding sections of advice worse. Combat this by occasionally stretching. It doesn’t do much by itself, but it makes everything else just a little bit better, and therefore makes every one of the tips I’ve offered that little bit more important.

The objective is always to have fun

Treat anything that gets in the way of that objective as a problem to be solved. The solutions I’ve offered above might not work in your specific circumstances, or might not be available, so use these as a starting point to finding your own solutions. And if you find anything I haven’t mentioned, feel free to share it in the comments!

On a completely unrelated topic:

Over the last 36 hours Campaign Mastery has received more than 3000 spam comments, all originating from about 25 IP addresses. I doubt that I am the only site being hit in this way, it seems unlikely that Campaign Mastery would be singled out and 3000+ in 36 hours doesn’t seem high enough for me to be the recipient of these spambots exclusive attentions.

I have reluctantly taken the unprecedented step (for me) of blocking access to the site by those IP addresses, and hope that this does not impact any legitimate reader. The owners of the networks in question have been advised of the problem, but after 24 hours had not yet fixed the issue.

I have no reason not to give the networks in question the benefit of the doubt, and so I assume that this is the result of a security violation of those sites. For this reason I am not going to name the sites, provide links to them, or quote the affected IP addresses.

At some future point I will unblock those IP addresses (not saying when) one at a time and see if the deluge resumes – and if it doesn’t work, you can bet that I’ll have unblocked them by the time you read about it all. In the meantime, if you are unable to access Campaign Mastery as usual, this is probably the reason, and you should contact your site hosts / ISP about their security. I do apologize to any user affected.

About the Stat Vs Stat series

This nine-part series looks at opposed stat checks and what they can represent. Part 8 will create a new characterization tool, The Stat Matrix, based on the interactions described, and show how to use it to turn stats into characters, and Part 9 will wrap up the series by turning that process on its head – demonstrating a way to use the Stat Matrix to turn a personality into a set of stats for a character.

What Is Strength?

According to the 3.x rules, “STR measures your character’s muscle and physical power.” Pathfinder says much the same thing (“muscle and physical power”). In fact, it measures nothing of the kind; what they measure is the character’s capacity for generating physical force – force for shoving, pulling, lifting, carrying and hitting things – and for jumping over obstacles, wrestling, bending things, and breaking things.

STR Checks

Logically, a STR check would be called for to ascertain how effectively the character targets and delivers the force that they are capable of. There are a couple of subtle nuances that can make an interpretational difference of which GMs should be aware, and should choose between.

Option 1: Reduction from Potential Maximum

This is the most common interpretation. It assumes that the best that a character can produce is the amount indicated by the stat value, and a stat check shows how far removed from that maximum a specific effort is. Most of the time (a success), the losses will be negligible, but from time to time (a failure) a string of minor problems – stance, targeting, leverage, whatever – will compound to limit the amount of force actually delivered relative to the potential to “not enough”. The assumption therefore is that the character’s stat is a measure of the maximum that the character can achieve.

Option 2: Capacity for extraordinary Results

When a GM allows a system for critical successes and failures on stat checks, regardless of the actual mechanics of that system, he has opted for this variation whether he realizes it or not. In addition to the either/or situation of “enough” vs. “not enough” force, the capacity for a critical failure or fumble indicates that a character can achieve catastrophically less than the performance indicated by their stat value, or devastatingly more. The assumption on which these mechanics are built is therefore that the character’s stat is a measure of the power delivered on an average successful result.

That in itself delivers a sting in the tail of the definition – the lower the stat, the lower the chances of a successful stat check, so the less likely a character is to actually deliver on his potential. The goal posts keep moving. Very few GMs who introduce a critical success/failure mechanic are aware of all the nuances and subtleties that such systems incorporate.

Option 3: Effective Force Delivery

I know at least one GM who decided that an incremental effect was preferable than the “all or nothing” ledge of the standard “enough/not-enough” mechanic. Essentially, every point of success on a Stat check adds +1 to the character’s effective STR, every point by which the character falls short subtracts 1 from the character’s effective STR. The results have the advantage of transparency to the players, and it readily translates to any derivative of STR, such as the amount that a character can carry. So far as I know, this system was never anything more than a theoretical exercise (the GM in question never refereed D&D or any derivative of the system), but it’s one heck of a proposition.

And it’s in Stat Vs Stat contests that this variant really shows it’s value, because ultimately it produces a simple and direct comparison between the two scores that makes it completely obvious who has won and who has lost.

STR Checks: General implications

If every character delivered their optimum capacity every time, Stat vs Stat tests are completely straightforward. You compare the stats and the highest wins – full stop, end of story. Incorporating a stat check die roll of any sort immediately adds a fuzziness to this straightforward picture. A character whose stat is slightly lower than that of the character with whom he is being compared can still win any individual contest, though if the comparison happens often enough, the superior raw stat will bias the outcomes – statistically, overall, nothing changes, so a higher stat retains its overall value.

Nevertheless, the combination of this fuzziness with variations on the game mechanics of the stat check create nuances of interpretation. Option one is all about how badly each character fails to live up to their potential, and who fails by the most relative to their optimum. Option two implies that there are things that the character can do to enhance his situation directly as well as by compromising what the other character can deliver, resulting in a more dynamic range of descriptive interpretations – but requiring the GM to interpret the results, or a lot of the added value of the option is lost.

There is a subject within engineering – more properly, in mechanical engineering – called statics. It’s used to calculate loads and stresses and that sort of thing in basic engineering and works by abstracting a construction to its essential elements. You don’t need to understand statics to interpret STR rolls, but it can definitely help. What may surprise a lot of people is that the terminology and concepts that they often apply in converting roll results into descriptive language actually derive from an amateur understanding of statics.

For example, consider a character trying to push a pole over. If the roll fails, the GM might talk about the character losing traction, or not having enough grip on the ground to put their full strength into it. Or they might think about the pole as a lever, and the character pushing too close to the fulcrum of the lever (where the pole enters the ground) to be able to achieve full effect. Or the pole’s resistance to bending (metal) or fracturing (wood/stone) might be less than the resistance of the ground into which the pole is embedded – and once the pole bends or breaks, it reduces the effective force being applied on pushing the pole out of the ground. These are all concepts of statics, whether the GM knows it or not.

Under the “critical success” model, the GM might suggest a flaw or fracture in the surface of the ground that creates a weakness in a particular direction, enhancing the effective STR relative to the requirement, when interpreting a critical success in narrative terminology. Again, this is a more advanced application of statics.

STR Vs Stat

The preceding section mentions a key concept that is essential to interpreting STR vs Stat checks – STR is about generating force, which is used to overcome resistance. This metaphor of resistance is a key touchstone to employ when converting STR vs Stat contests into narrative language, which is essential to assigning meaning and relevance to the stat checks.

STR Vs. STR:

This is absolutely the most obvious stat vs. stat comparison going.

Internal

There aren’t many cases where a character is trying to overcome his own strength (I discount Mirrors Of Opposition because they produce outside opponents who simply happen to have the same STR score). But there’s at least one circumstance that produces such a check.

Self-restraint
Arguably, attempting to control the effects of a stat is also a function of the stat. The implication is that when STR needs to be applied with finesse – neither too much nor too little – the outcome is best determined with an opposed internal STR vs STR check. One check is to apply sufficient force, the other is to control the application of that STR. If the first roll fails, then the character has applied too little force, if the second fails then the character has applied too much, or has applied it incorrectly in some manner – pushing when he should have pulled, or whatever. A good example would be throwing something fragile that you don’t want to break – or don’t want to break over you, but there are others. Certain rope restraints, for example, that connect the ankles to a choke-hold while forcing the character into an uncomfortable position – stooped or bent over, or with the legs bent all the way at the knees. Attempting to burst these bonds with STR would definitely merit consideration as an application of STR vs STR – though it could also be argued that the check should belong in the next category, STR vs CON.

This application of opposed stat checks has particular significance when the concept of Casual Strength is taken into consideration, something I’ll get to in a moment.

External

Arm-wrestling. Boxing (actually, you would usually use the combat mechanics for Boxing, unless you want to employ a more cinematic approach). Trying to force open a door while another character holds it closed. Hauling a heavy load up a cliff or a wall. A tug-of-war. Heck, even a contest like the shot-put or hammer-throw – though some people might argue that there’s enough technique involved there that it should be a Dex check and not a Strength check, or something even more convoluted.

Casual Strength
There’s a game mechanic in the Hero System called “Casual Strength”. The basic idea is that characters exert one-tenth of their strength every time they push a button, pull a chair out from the table, grip a doorbell, shake a hand, pick up a glass or a bottle, etc. When you’re dealing with superheroic characters who can have many times the strength of ordinary people, this can be important – breaking the button when you push it, pulling the chair back so hard that the backboard is ripped off, tearing the doorknob out of the door if you don’t turn the knob all the way, breaking the bones in someone’s hand, and so on.

You can derive a similar value for D&D / Pathfinder by dividing the amount that a character can carry by five and then converting that back to a STR score. A character with STR 18, according to Pathfinder can carry 100lbs as light load – which gives a 20lb capacity for using casual STR, which is a STR of 6. A character with STR 25 has a light-load capacity of 266 lbs – giving a casual STR of about 13.5. Why is this useful?

It means that the character with STR 25 exerts more force without thinking about it as a character with STR 13 does deliberately at light load levels – and more than the absolute all-out effort (exceptional die rolls notwithstanding) as a character with STR 5. The STR 18 character has casual STR equal to a deliberate effort by a character with STR 6 – and more than an all-out effort by a character with STR 2. That doesn’t sound like much, but it must be remembered that “character” in this context should have a very broad interpretation. A higher STR character can deal with a larger, heavier, stronger pet with casual STR – all that you really want to use – while a weaker character may have to make a deliberate effort just to restrain an animal while walking it.

STR vs STR checks, and the notion of casual STR, can be used to provide context for what the character considers ordinary life, and that’s well worth the effort of analysis.

STR Vs. CON

But that’s the barest tip of the iceberg of the utility of understanding STR vs Stat checks. Let us now turn our attention to STR vs CON.

External

Str Vs Con external checks are fairly straightforward, at first glance. One character is attempting to use STR to inflict pain and the other is trying to resist this persuasion. There’s a relatively narrow intersection point between the two, which narrows even further when combat mechanics are used to exclude the more violent possibilities.

But some thought reveals a few more subtle situations. Attempting to break a horse, for example, is less about skill as a rider, and not at all about skill in animal handling – it’s more a contest between the STR of the horse attempting to throw the rider and the STR of the rider attempting to stay on. The fact that it’s possible at all is a result of Statics once again – the rider has gravity and his mass on his side, while the horse is fighting to overcome gravity and it’s own mass, and is unable to bring his full strength to bear because it’s in the wrong direction (up, not forwards). As a result, even though the horse has more STR than the man, it can’t bring all of it to bear; its effective STR is a lot lower. Enough to make it a fair contest, in fact – which is why bucking broncos are a regular part of rodeos to this day.

Internal

Things get more interesting when you start considering situations in which the same character is making opposed CON and STR checks.

Self-Injury
If the difference between STR and CON is high enough, the character may be so strong that he injures himself slightly when he exerts himself – pulling and straining muscles, etc. Athletes do this all the time, especially if they aren’t sufficiently warmed up before commencing full-intensity activities. As a general rule of thumb, there are two modes that I would consider: Half STR and STR-5.

Half STR means that the character’s CON is half the character’s STR or less; STR-5 means that the character’s STR is five or more higher than the character’s CON. The latter gives a greater chance of a successful CON check, ie a pair of dice rolls for a result of “nothing happens”, the former means that making such an opposed check is far more likely to indicate an injury. The assessment of how severely the character should be compromised by such injuries is another decision for the GM to make, preferably in advance.

Sidebar: Which stat covers determination?

A while back, I wrote an article which attempts to figure out which stat should govern instincts and intuitive insights A Rational Intuition. Another, equally-vexing question is which stat reflects a character’s determination? The usual answer in my games has been that this is a function of “Will”, which is a part of the Wisdom stat – so much so that I have sometimes renamed the stat and made Wisdom a sub-function of Will.

This is not the only possible answer. Another is that determination is a function of force of personality, and therefore it should be an expression of Charisma. This has the benefit of doing something useful with what is otherwise one of the most useless of the stats in terms of doing things for the character.

And still another school of thought suggests that determination should be an expression of whatever stat best expresses what the character wants to achieve. A character with high STR has a high level of willpower when it comes to using physical force – in effect, because they are good at it, they have learned to rely on it, and to resort to it more readily.

In an effort to keep this series of manageable length, I’m going to try to assume (despite the obvious contradiction) that all of these are true at the same time. The GM should make his own ruling on the subject and then reject interpretations of opposed stat checks that don’t agree with that decision.

STR compromised by health
Another occasion on which STR vs CON checks are appropriate is when the character’s health is compromising his capabilities. This could be anything from a hangover to food poisoning to a wave of supernaturally-induced nausea. At least at lower levels, it would not be inappropriate to have characters engaged in combat with undead need to make CON checks to overcome the stench. This applies when determination uses “the most appropriate stat” model.

Hysterical Strength
We’ve all heard stories of ordinary people being driven to extraordinary feats of strength in moments of utmost desperation. This is often described as Hysterical Strength. This is the sort of extreme result that only a critical success system models into an RPG, and it’s clearly a case of overriding the normal limits placed on the in-built biological capacity. The side effects – torn muscles and damaged joints – are so obviously akin to the self-injury category already mentioned that this is clearly best modeled by an internal opposed stat check – the character’s STR is saying “yes” but the character’s CON is saying “don’t be crazy”, while the character’s rational mind is hardly saying anything at all. When circumstances seemed appropriate, I would permit a character to exhibit hysterical STR – but only if they failed both an INT check and a CON check while succeeding in a STR check opposing both of these, AND rolling a natural 20 on d20 (or 3 on 3d6 for the Hero system, where low results are good).

STR Vs. DEX

Nimbleness and delicacy of touch can often be at odds with the application of force. Even more often, the two are complimentary, with both checks needing to succeed in order to accomplish whatever it is that the character is attempting.

External

One character provides force while another aims and directs that force. One character attempts to hold a character still with sheer force while the other attempts to wriggle free. One character throws something that another character attempts to catch. One character attempts to keep his footing on a slippery surface while another attempts to push him over. These are all examples of external STR vs. DEX checks.

Internal

Of course, who needs another character trying to push you over? Simply using force on a slippery surface is challenge enough, and is an example of an internal STR vs. DEX check. In fact, any situation calling for both the application of force and any form of physical delicacy other than direct control of STR is an internal STR vs. DEX check, which is why these are amongst the most common checks required.

Reaction Time is another attribute of DEX, and can also result in a STR vs DEX check. A character is picking up a chest, which seems rather heavier than he initially expected from its size, when he notices a rope or lever attached to its underside – can he stop lifting the chest before setting off the trap? Or has he been tricked into lifting too vigorously to stop in time? Perhaps the mechanism is a little rusty, explaining the additional weight, and giving the character his one chance to stop himself in time. Can he hold it up absolutely still? That requires both STR and DEX.

Caber-tossing is about more than simply throwing a heavy piece of timber. You have to throw it in such a way that it spins through 180 degrees, so that the point that starts on the top ends up being farther away from the character; the relative success of one caber-toss verses another lies in the distance between the point of launch and where that bottom end falls. There is arguably enough finesse involved to require both a STR and a DEX check.

Hammer-tossing and shot-put are arguably examples of the same thing.

Running while pulling a wagon or rickshaw or even a stretcher with a patient? STR and DEX combined, definitely.

STR Vs. INT

This is a little more problematic. In fact the only example I could think of is…

External

…where a character is attempting to overcome someone’s reasoned and rational arguement with a show of force. This could be aimed at the opposing character, or at an audience. The character using the INT check might be attempting to stop the STR character from rushing headlong into a dangerous or unknown situation, a possible ambush, or something along those lines. Or the character using the STR might be attempting to persuade the opposed character to grasp the nettle because time is running out to take action.

Internal

Of course, any sort of dispute between rationality and force can be internal as easily as external. This is a key personality indicator.

STR Vs. WIS

INT and WIS are so similar that a straightforward analogue of the STR vs INT example also applies directly to STR vs WIS contests, both external and internal. Instead of applying cold rationality to counter the arguements of force, though, this tends to be about force vs doctrine and general experience. And that makes this another key personality indicator.

STR Vs. CHA

…and the same is true where a display of force attempts to overwhelm charisma or emotional arguement.

Emotional arguement? When did that become part of Charisma?

Officially, never. My line of arguement runs as follows: Empathy is a key element of charisma. Empathy is about understanding emotions. Displaying the emotional cues or arguements that will cause a particular group to respond to a speaker in the fashion he wants is therefore an application of charisma – a character with a high charisma attracts people because they like him, and one of the reasons that they like him is because he is able to lead their emotions in the direction he wants them to go. It follows that an appeal to the emotions of a crowd is an attempt to use charisma on that crowd, and therefore emotional arguements are part of applied Charisma.

Internal

This of course means that any attempt to control one’s own emotional response can also be an attribute of charisma – so long as you aren’t trying to use logic or common sense to dissuade yourself. “I know they are just trying to make me angry, and they’ve succeeded, and I’ve got a right to be angry. I also know they are doing this to get me to do something hasty, without thinking, and since that’s what they want me to do, I’m not going to give them the satisfaction. Their turn will come…”

Anger management is often about finding a safe outlet for the emotional overload. Rationality plays no part in this; it has to be a learned behavior, you can only be rational after getting control of your emotions. It is not so much about dispelling anger as it is dissipating rage to permit a rational response to the cause of the anger – and about techniques to prevent the anger building up to the point of uncontrolled rage in the first place.

STR can be equated to a character’s instinct toward a violent reaction (certainly, there’s no other stat that comes close), and a STR vs CHA check can therefore represent a character’s impulse control. Which is certainly not an obvious application of stat checks, but is definitely food for thought. And the perfect place to end this article.

In the (eventual) next part of this series: CON comes under the spotlight.

Earlier this week, the subject of opposed stat checks came to mind. Although it seems to be the sort of subject that would have been done to death several times over, I found that I had a couple of what I hope are original thoughts on the subject – and a couple of advanced versions of techniques that we all have to develop as GMs. So this occasional series is going to look at the whole panoply of Stat Vs Stat questions.

As GMs, we are used to having to interpret stats into personality attributes all the time, and vice versa. This character should have a DEX of what? This other character has an INT of 13 – what does that mean?

Most analyses work in reference to the ‘average person’, but this is not the only basis of comparison. And that’s what today’s article is all about – looking at the ground rules.

Core Stats

Most game systems have a particular set of ubiquitous stats at their heart. Some may split one of them up into two sub-stats, others may roll a couple of them together into a broader umbrella, but the concepts embodied by these stats are so fundamental that almost every game system has them, or some equivalent. All told, there are six of these stats.

The Six

The six core stats that form the bedrock of most game systems, one way or another, are the stats inherited from D&D and other early RPGs. They are:

• STRength
• CONstitution
• DEXterity
• INTelligence
• WISdom, and
• CHArisma.

Like a strawberry birthmark, the DNA of modern games systems continues to reflect their descent from these early prototypes.

Stat Vs Stat

While most interactions in RPGs come down to attack vs. defense, or skill vs. target, or skill vs skill, there are still occasions when the interaction is more primal, and require a test of raw capacity. When that test is opposed by another type of capacity, the result is a stat vs stat contest.

The Six by Six Matrix

With six stats, each of which can be opposed by any other, including someone else’s capacity in the same measure, the number of combinations can be expressed as a six-by-six matrix, where each column and each row belongs to each of the core stats. That gives a total of 36 possible specific types of stat vs. stat check.

Some of these can be unusual, so rare that they virtually never occur in real life. Some are frequent and common. So the interactions themselves have differing value to a GM. And its entirely possible, even likely, that not all of the possible applications of each combination will have occurred to any given GM.

Nor can I promise to cover the whole field of possibilities, for the same reason. But a systematic approach gives me a better shot at it than blind chance, because it forces me to think about those unusual modes of interaction. Until I adopted this approach, for example, I had never thought of a circumstance in which a CHA vs DEX check might be needed. Now a couple of them have occurred to me – which means that my repertoire of techniques has grown, and this series has already made me a better GM.

Stat checks in D&D / Pathfinder

Since these core stats derive from D&D, and each game system defines these stats perhaps just a little differently, I have decided to use D&D as the framework for the comparison. But the results will be just as applicable to game systems as Diverse as Traveler, Call Of Cthulhu, Champions, Indiana Jones, and Dr Who.

It must be stated up-front that there is no official mechanism for making opposed stat checks in the 3.x / Pathfinder game systems (never mind stat vs stat checks!) They attempt to cover this situation by giving characters an untrained skill check and making all contests either attacks or Skill vs Skill contests. But what do you do when there’s no skill that specifically covers what the player is trying to accomplish? What if what you are attempting is to use a skill untrained that doesn’t permit untrained use?

Champions uses the example of a character being pushed out a window and trying to grab the window ledge before she can fall. In D&D/Pathfinder, a GM might employ a Reflex Save for this purpose, so it’s not the perfect example. How about trying to walk across rice paper without leaving a mark or tearing it? That’s not a “dodge” sort of activity, so it’s not appropriate territory for a reflex save. The best way of resolving the question is with a DEX check against a target nominated by the DM.

There are times, then, when stat checks are a useful extension to the GMs toolkit, canonical or not.

Mechanics of Opposed Stat Checks

There will be times when a character is trying to do something and another character is trying to stop them from succeeding. When there’s a skill covering both activities, you get a skill vs skill check.

As soon as you acknowledge the utility of the occasional stat check, you run into more ways for them to interact with the game system: Skill check vs. Stat check, and Stat check vs. Stat Check. The first gives us a guide apon which to base the game mechanics – it should be parallel to the skill check system. In effect, what we’re talking about is a roll of d20 + Stat Modifier or (in some game systems) 3d6 + stat modifier. This means that a character relying on raw potential instead of expertise is always at a disadvantage relative to a character who can bring some skill to bear.

In a game system that doesn’t give stat modifiers, like the Hero System, you can use the stat itself. Or you can have each character make a stat check and compare who succeeded by the greater amount.

Other systems are possible – I have seen AD&D systems in which you were awarded 1d6 for every 5 points of a stat, for example, and the highest total won. I have seen that same approach employed in Traveler.

A useful way of looking at the situation is this: One character is attempting to do something, and the opposing character is using his stats and expertise to set the target required for success in overcoming his resistance.

I had done a whole lot of very pretty graphs to examine the way the chances of success shifted in opposed skill checks, like the one below:

Red-Yellow: 2nd 3d6 roll is higher than the first so the stat vs stat check shows a failure to overcome resistance. Green: a tie. Blue: The first character succeeds in overcoming the second character’s resistance. This graph shows 3d6+2 vs 3d6+0.

The graph was generated using AnyDice and then colored.

Unfortunately, for some reason, I suffered a complete brain meltdown and completely forgot that D&D 3.x and Pathfinder use a d20 instead of 3d6. So these are pretty much useless, and the article is a LOT shorter because I had all sorts of variations to discuss. Oh, well.

Ties: Success, Failure, or something in between?

Is the goal to beat the target, or to match the target? How you choose to handle ties is generally up to each GM, possibly drawing on the skill vs skill rules for consistency. As a general rule of thumb, I usually assume that matching the target or better is enough for success, but you’re free to choose an alternative interpretation.

Two Modes Of Interaction

There are two modes of stat interaction that can result in a Stat vs Stat check: External and Internal.

External

This is where two characters are opposing each other. An Arm wrestle, or discus throw, or whatever.

Internal

This is where the character is opposing himself. A good example might be trying to do some delicate task (threading a needle) while extremely seasick (DEX vs CON) – if the DEX check succeeds, he has threaded the needle; if the CON total is higher, then the character is too distracted by the need to keep his lunch down. There will be many more, and better; I wouldn’t actually run this as Stat Vs stat, but as two separate stat checks – with the margin of success in the CON check becoming a bonus modifier to the CON check. That way, the character can actually lose his lunch on a failed CON check.

Not all Combinations Are Relevant

So, we have six stats, each of which has some form of stat check, which can interact with any of the six stat checks in one of two ways. That’s 72 combinations, at least in theory. No matter how interested you are in the subject, though, by the end of 72 combinations you would be pretty burned out on the subject – that list of combinations needs to get pruned down to something more manageable.

Fortunately, not all combinations are going to be relevant. STR vs STR, for example: there’s not much need for an Internal Mode with that interaction, but there’s definite value in an External Mode. That probably halves the number of interactions to be detailed. In some cases, both will need to be considered, but at least some of the time, only one mode will matter. I figure that’s a 33% reduction.

Then there’s the fact that almost half the entries on the original table are going to be redundant. STR vs. CON is going to be the same as CON vs STR – or close enough that they can usually both be discussed under the same heading. That’s about a 40% reduction.

All told, that’s 67% x 60% x 72, or about 29 interaction modes to consider.

The shifting perspective

External mode implies that one stat check will belong to a PC and one to an NPC. But the interaction remains the same, regardless of which character is trying to overcome the other’s resistance, so generalizing instead of saying which belongs to the PC prevents replenishment of the combinations matrix by adding a new variable.

About the Stat Vs Stat series

All told, there will be nine parts to this series, which will be an occasional item here at Campaign Mastery.

• Part 1 is this introduction.
• Parts 2 to 7 will each focus on a single core stat, and the combinations with that stat’s check.
• Part 8 will create a new characterization tool, the Matrix, based on the interactions described, and show how to use it to turn stats into characters.
• Finally, Part 9 (all going well) will turn that process on its head and demonstrate a way to use the matrix to turn a personality into stats.

Right, so that’s got the decks cleared. Originally, I was simply going to dive straight into the interactions, but as the article began to take shape I kept finding more things that needed to be addressed in a preamble – until it reached the point of needing to be an article in its own right, which became this article. Next Time: Strength. Because I want to hit the ground running with the series – and because I haven’t actually gotten to the part I originally intended to write – I’m aiming to present part two next week. Let’s get down to business!