My history with RPGs encompasses an unusual variety of settings in which to play. Each different circumstance involved different session lengths and conditions, and so I feel that I am uniquely qualified to discuss the subject of session scheduling.

NB: The following is necessarily edited and omits a huge amount in favor of the relevant.

The Early Days

When I first got involved with RPGs, we played at a student facility within the University of New South Wales here in Sydney, on Saturdays. The facility, known as The Blue Room for reasons I never really understood, was used by students post-lessons which meant that we didn’t actually take possession of the premises until Noon, and even then had to share the facilities with non-gamers until 1-2 PM. Most had lunch while we waited for the students to go home.

We had use of the facilities until 6AM, in theory, though numbers started falling off at about midnight. That’s 10-16 hours of play each week.

Around 6 or 7 PM – after 5-6 hours play – we would break for dinner – usually about an hour. Between midnight and 1 AM, we would break again for a late-night snack and then play through until one of us announced reaching the limits of his endurance.

The whole atmosphere was very casual, and ten minutes lost here and there was never a problem – I can even remember one occasion when all the games came to a halt because a player was approaching the high score in Defender!

Variations

Campus Security were the only people not happy with this arrangement, and after lodging a number of grumbles with university management, a couple of students not actually part of our group had too much to drink and made a mess on university grounds, providing them with what they claimed to be a Causus Belli. Claiming that they were too busy monitoring our group to keep full control of the rest of the campus grounds, they succeeded in restricting us first to a 1AM finish, then Midnight, and then in getting us banned altogether.

Until the last of these restrictions, all this really did was to cut out the late-late-session, though the fact that we had no opportunity to continue for an extra hour or two if necessary to finish the current stage of an adventure had a profound psychological impact on everyone.

As the final hour or so approached, first the GM would begin rushing, almost forcing the pace, and then the players would begin feeling and reacting in the same manner. Roleplaying elements became submerged in favor of cursory descriptions of action; all the characters everyone began to resemble a Sly Stallone knockoff. The haste made for some incredibly thick-headed decision-making by both parties.

The Long-Weekend Social AD&D Game

In the course of the Queen’s Birthday long weekend (early June in our state calendar), I participated in a standalone social game held at a suburban home from Friday night until Sunday afternoon. This was the first (and last) time I’ve roleplayed in any game where the players were free to consume alcohol (and some did, to excess).

The whole event was incredibly casual. Half the group spent the evening gathered around the bonfire in the back yard, players were continually scattered all over the quarter-acre block, there was a continuous stream of barbequed steak and sausages for whoever wanted them, and gameplay was incredibly calm and slow – until about noon on Sunday, when the GM suddenly seemed to realise that there were only three hours or so left in the game session. That was when the panic set in; having spent 36 hours getting about 6 hours of play done, the GM then attempted to get another 6 hours worth into the final three hours. Nor was he completely sober at the time.

Predictably, the results were something of a mess. My character didn’t even enter play until mid-afternoon on Saturday, and some players never got their characters into play. There was no organization in the campaign, either; players were told what level of character to bring, but beyond that it was open slather. Character backgrounds were virtually non-existent, some were overpowered with magical goodies while others were underpowered, concepts were contradictory (three players decided that their characters were brothers without noticing that one worshipped Aphrodite (Greek Mythos), one worshipped Odin (Norse Mythos), and the third worshipped Set(Egyptian Mythos))!

The First Principle

These experiences gave me my first principle of session length: The psychological effects of available time are more important than the physical or social effects.

If you have too much time and not enough game, the focus of the game and the urgency of events will dissipate. The longer the session, the harder it is to get the pacing right. And, unless you get the pacing exactly right, at some point you will discover that there isn’t enough time left, and a state of slight panic will set in.

The MLC & Institute Of Technology Eras

Around October of 1981, it became clear that we were no longer welcome at the University Campus, and we started looking around for somewhere else to play. We ended up hiring some meeting rooms on the first floor of the MLC Centre building in North Sydney, rooms which were completely unused over the weekend. This was about two or three miles away from where I was living at the time so I was able to walk home over the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge. This was also when I first started to GM.

We gained access to the facilities when the security guard day shift arrived at 9 AM, and were required to vacate the premises at Midnight, when the evening shift finished. Because there was no competing demand for the facilities, they cost very little to hire, and there were quite a lot of people gaming at the time – sixty to seventy-five – so the price per head was even lower.

The day obviously broke naturally into three sessions – morning, afternoon, and evening – but a funny thing happened: no game started in the morning session went anywhere. They had trouble holding onto players or getting regular attendance and those players they did get seemed to have trouble maintaining concentration.

The Second Principle

It didn’t take very long for this to establish the second principle of game scheduling: Habits are powerful and persistent, no matter how inconvenient they may be.

Because we were all used to starting play after lunch, and spending time gossiping and chattering about geekish things prior, what happened was that the ‘general chatter’ period became extended through the morning. It became a time for board games and card games and character generation and even some game prep – anything and everything except actual play.

Variations

As a result, when the opening times varied over time (in the direction of starting later and ending earlier), not much changed. It was, in general, only a matter of cutting short the “gossip period”. Over time, we became well known to the security guards, and when eventually the building stopped using human security and relied on electronic alarm systems, we were entrusted with arrangements for keys.

During this period, state laws were enacted which required us (and other organizations, clubs, playgrounds, and the like) to have insurance, which in turn required us to organize into a formal club – “The New South Wales Historical Gaming Society”. It wasn’t so much a requirement targeting accidents and injuries to members as it was targeting accidents to incidental members of the public.

Because the biggest risk we faced was of somebody tripping over a bag full of books, and our core activities involved nothing more strenuous or risky than sitting down at a table, the premiums started off very low – from memory, our weekly fees rose from $1 to $2.

The problem was that each time we got a new risk assessor, they kept confusing us with historical reenactment societies, and especially The Society For Creative Anachronism (SCA) which carried out activities like mock combats. As a result, the premiums kept going up, and then being negotiated down – but never down quite as far as it had been the year before.

As a result, from the outside, it appeared to management of the MLC building that we were engaged in continual disputes with the various insurers (we used to chop and change regularly, always seeking the lowest premium).

The Institute Of Technology

Eventually, the MLC building was sold, and (in part) because of this dispute history – which looked worse on paper than it actually was – the new owners informed us that we would have to move elsewhere. Since we had been using the MLC building for years at this point – it must have been 1985 or ’86 – we now had a long history of trustworthy behavior – we were able to find new premises on the 26th floor of the Institute Of Technology, a technical college in central Sydney (which later became the University Of Technology).

We had access to a student recreation/gathering area on the 26th floor, and to one of the classrooms. Also on this floor were the facilities of the Institute’s Radio station, something that would quickly become significant. But I’ll get to that in a few minutes.

We had access to the 26th floor from Noon to 10PM. That suggests breaking the day into two equal segments of five hours each, with each of them having a meal break at the start.

Didn’t Happen. The half-hour from Noon to 12:30 – or so – was lost to lunch and gossip, and the hour from 12:30 to 1:30 – or sometimes 2 PM. If the chatting went over-long, as it sometimes did, it could be as late as 2:30 before “serious” game play got underway.

5PM soon proved to be too early for the evening meal. 6PM was more typical, and 6:30 was not uncommon. So play session one ran from about 2 (by the time set-up was complete) to about 6 (a total of about 4 hours) and session 2 ran from about 7 to about 10 (about 3 hours).

But this brought about an interesting phenomenon: because people were used to playing until Eleven, that final hour of mad panic didn’t happen any more in the evening session (though it always felt like we were stopping early). Because the afternoon sessions were also down an hour on what people were used to, the same thing happened – and the same “finishing too early” feeling obtained.

In other words, the Second Principle was being (quite accidentally) used to the benefit of our games.

GM Politics

These session times were important because of the number of games being played. When we had first moved to the MLC Building, GMs ran the same campaign every week, all day. Occasionally, a game would finish early and a different game would then start on a given day, usually after a meal break.

While at the MLC, the number of GMs running campaigns increased, and some GMs (myself included) began running multiple campaigns concurrently. There were a number of arrangements tried to organize this; we tried splitting the games by the evening meal, we tried splitting them by days of the month, we tried combinations and we tried running them as “what do the majority feel like playing?”. There were a number of arguements between GMs over whether or not one was being greedy in tying up players in their campaigns.

Ultimately, we ended up sorting out some unofficial round rules and drawing up a timetable. The three most popular campaigns (by number of players) were permitted a full day each; other campaigns had a half-day each. They were all organized by availability of existing players. It turned out that mine were two of the most popular campaigns, and that they had no players in common with the next two most popular campaigns. So these formed the 1-2 punch at the start of the month, when tables were at a premium, and for the other weeks of the month, it was session-by-session. Anyone wishing to start a new campaign simply had to find players who were available – or who were more interested in the new campaign than in continuing within the game they were currently signed up for.

The notion of a timetable, so that players knew when the games they were committed to were going to be played, did not go over well with everyone, but it prevented so many arguements that most accepted it as a necessary evil.

You can see how the timetable evolved from one of my early articles at Campaign Mastery, Clash Of The Timetables.

The Third Principle

The timetabling adventures through the years establish the Third Principle of game scheduling: Predictable schedules can create patterns of behavior which strengthen games – if they do not conflict with the Second principle.

The Connection

Session lengths play a crucial role in timetable negotiations. They have different lengths – afternoon sessions tend to be longer than evening sessions. They have different attendance restrictions – afternoon sessions can be delayed by players who work Saturday mornings, evening sessions occasionally run afoul of other social functions. They have different psychologies – afternoon sessions have daylight and are better suited to heroic and friendly campaigns, while night-time campaigns are better suited to gothic, horror, and cinematic game styles, as well as anything sci-fi oriented, because the environment helps players buy into the game.

The Fourth Principle

This identifies the fourth principle of scheduling: the environment can reinforce or or undermine a game; schedule accordingly.

Radio Station Dramas

In winter, when they kept the doors closed to retain warmth, there was no problem, but in summer, when the staff of the radio station wanted to keep their doors open for additional ventilation, they found they couldn’t because of the noise from roleplaying in full heat.

After a couple of years, these complaints led to us being relegated to a couple of classrooms. The space available, which was already more confined than we had been used to, reduced even more dramatically. Then we got moved to even smaller classrooms on the 25th floor. The situation was becoming untenable, but having learned already how difficult it was to locate affordable venues located centrally, we made the best of it, expecting that once the weather cooled, we would be permitted to return to the 26th floor open area.

But then an incident occurred that brought an end to our time at the Institute. One occasional attendee who had been an irregular fixture since the Blue Room days took it apon himself to climb the fire stairs to the 26th floor and have a stickybeak inside the Radio Station facilities – and got caught. He subsequently became the first and only member to be expelled from the club; we all felt betrayed and let down by his behavior.

The Woodstock Era

Fortunately, we had always been wary of the possibility that we would have to move again, and had been constantly on the lookout for potential future venues. The facilities that we moved to were somewhat controversial at first, since they were many kilometers removed from the city centre, but we quickly became accustomed to them.

The hours of operation were very similar to those we had enjoyed at our previous venue, but the arrangement of rooms meant some changes to the established routines. The preliminary card and board games went away, replaced by the occasional game when a roleplaying session finished early.

This was a period of stability in game environment, which meant that the only changes were in the games that were being played and not when. We stayed at Woodstock for well over a decade, and it was only when the facility was slated for redevelopment by the city council (who owned it) that we reluctantly moved.

About the only change that took place was that the timing of the evening meal slowly crept a little later, finally stabilizing at around the 6:30-7:00 mark. In essence, this added an hour and a half to the morning sessions, at the expense of the evening sessions, and marked the end of those incidental side-games.

Attempting to even the balance

There were numerous attempts to even the balance in timing between the two sessions over the years, and none of them lasted very long – two weeks was a good run. This only reinforced the significance of second principle as a dominant factor. In fact, this point is sufficiently important to reinforce it as the Fifth Principle of scheduling – but I’ll get to that in a moment.

The Gamestore Era

And so we moved to where we gather to this day – most of the time – a first-story game store, where we have been based for about a decade. Since the store had its own insurance, we let our organization lapse into history. The store opens at 9 or 10 AM, and for the first few years, closed at 10PM. Did we start at that 9 or 10 time? Hear that hollow echo?

We started at the same time that we had been starting. People would show up between noon and one, eat lunch and chat until somewhere between 1 and 1:30, and start play between 1:30 and 2 PM.

After those initial years, the store was sold to new owners who were not themselves gamers, and hence the closing time was adjusted to between 6 PM and 6:30. Where previously, we had been running two games a day, suddenly there was only time for one – unless we started earlier and interrupted the first game with a meal break in the middle. Did we start earlier? Any guesses?

We started at exactly the same time that we had become used to starting. And people started adjusting their lives to take into account a departure from home timed to get them to the game within the Noon to 1:30 window. People started sleeping later, for example.

The Fifth Principle

And that brings me to that fifth and final Principle: Any ingrained habit will persist until people are forced to change it.

It didn’t matter that we had more time available in which to play – because it would have meant starting at a time earlier than that which had become convenient and routine, it simply didn’t happen. The best that could be done was ensuring that everyone got to the game as close to the regular starting time as possible rather than being a little more casual about it, and even that could not be done with any regularity.

The Final Principle

The final thing that I have noted over the years is that Regular Breaks break immersion – but strengthen it the rest of the time. While I haven’t exactly nailed down how often they should come and how long they should be, I do have some guidelines to offer.

When I was working for the Australian Bureau Of Statistics processing the Census in 1996-97 and in 2001-2, OH&S rules mandated a 5 minute break every 2 hours as the absolute minimum for workers using computer screens or performing tasks which required high levels of concentration. Having slightly more was found to actually increase productivity and attention to detail, especially on the part of decision-making. To ensure that the productivity targets were achieved within OH&S guidelines, the breaks were mandated as a scheduled 10 minutes, every hour. This meant that if necessary while working on an urgent task or to meet a deadline, staff could miss a break without violating the OH&S guidelines.

With the increased use of tablets and laptops even in tabletop gaming, those OH&S guidelines – and especially the serendipitous effects on concentration, decision-making, and attention to detail – seem to be entirely valid as guidelines for gaming.

Putting It All Together

Ultimately, session lengths are the result of a confluence of other factors – start time, finish time, and meal times. The latter form natural boundaries that should always be taken into account. The worst possible session length is two hours; the first hour, everyone is distracted with chatter and food and non-game social activities, and the last hour can produce time pressures that lead to poor decision-making. Every hour in between is at maximum efficiency and attentiveness provided that regular breaks of 5-10 minutes every hour are taken. Sessions longer than about 6 hours are unsustainable unless they are considerably longer (at least 2 more hours and preferably 3-5 more) and broken by a meal. The same sloppiness/distraction effects also affect the half-hour before and the half-hour after a meal break. Don’t bother trying to change when those meal breaks happen – it won’t work. Build your session times around those meal breaks and natural partitions and you’ll get more play squeezed into the hours available.

Gaming at other times

Having tried gaming on occasions other than Saturdays now and then, I have some additional advice about scheduling games at such times. I’m presenting these as something as a postscript for the sake of completeness, because they aren’t part of the main subject of the article. A recent survey that I saw showed that 90% of RPG gaming happens on a Saturday; the remainder of these comments are addressed at the other 10%.

Some weekday comments

Weekdays are problematic because there is always the consideration of work the next day to take into account. I’ve seen games break up as early as 9PM as a result – and when you started at about 6:30 or 7PM, that’s a problem. Beyond this additional complication, all the advice about Saturdays still applies.

Some Friday Night comments

The one exception to the preceding comments comes on Friday nights. For more than a year, I used to precede my Saturday games – first at the Blue Room and then at the MLC Building – with a Friday Night session. These have been supplemented with other occasions from time to time.

And what I’ve noticed is that there is little urgency and less focus. People want to unwind after the working week and don’t want to do anything that feels too much like more work.

I’ve seen some games that took advantage of this state of mind – Paranoia worked especially well – and some that tried to swim against the tide, and they failed spectacularly. Old-school mindless hack-and-slash also works quite well.

If your thoughtful, intelligent players turn into savage barbarians in every game sessions, and you’re playing on Friday Nights, a change of schedule might produce more roleplay and less mayhem.

Some Sunday comments

Sundays are just like Saturdays except that they also have the problems of a weeknight insofar as most people will have to go to work on Monday morning. The exception is a long weekend, when they really ARE just like a Saturday.

Nevertheless, there are a few differences, psychologically, between a Saturday and a Sunday. The latter is usually a little more relaxed, the calm-and-casual point of the week. Saturdays are a little more business-like. Again, this can be important to the style of game that you want to run. It’s not a major factor, but it is nevertheless a contributing factor.

A Caveat and a Conclusion

Of course, all of this relates to gaming in Sydney, Australia, in an organized group or the remnants of such a group. The majority of tabletop RPG gaming is conducted in people’s homes, and of course, most of it is outside Australia. So your experiences may be different to mine, and so far as the advice is concerned, YMMV.

When do you play – and how do the principles I have identified vary, based on your experience? Your comments might be invaluable advice to a novice gamer whose circumstances are more closely related to yours than to mine, so don’t hold back!

One of the most under-developed game mechanics in D&D is the Curse. This has so many problems its hard to know where to begin, but I’ll give it a shot:

• Only clerics can curse because its a clerical spell.
• They hold no fear for anyone because they are so easily lifted.
• The suggested effects don’t even come close to matching human inventiveness when it comes to curses.

Curses are an untapped source of creative and roleplaying potential.

The Shards Connection

Having realized the above some time ago, when the proper opportunity arose while preparing the house rules for my Shards Of Divinity campaign, I seized it. The Shards campaign was intended to be a marriage between Gothic elements and High Fantasy, and giving Curses a bit more bite was essential to capturing that genre meld.

My solution was based, in part, on Curses Large and Small by Lloyd Brown III, which appeared in Knights Of The Dinner Table Issue 115, published by KenzerCo in 2006. I modified the contents of that article to suit my campaign’s needs at the time, and have revised them somewhat in light of experience for the appearance of the House Rules here.

The Anatomy Of A Curse

A curse consists of three elements: the effect, the misdeed, and the deity inflicting the effect in response to the misdeed. A fourth necessary element is a DC for the breaking of the curse. In addition, there are a couple of optional elements that may be included – triggers and duration limits, for example. Each of these subjects is considered in detail below.

Anyone can cast a curse – sometimes – at a price

The first major change is this: Anyone can beseech one of the Gods to bestow a Curse apon their enemies.

If the Curse is being bestowed as a dying act, the decision as to whether or not the Curse will be inflicted depends on the relationship between the Deity, the person requesting the Curse, and the circumstances. If the petitioner has been a faithful follower of the Deity, or the request accords with the portfolio of the Deity, the Curse may be bestowed. In making the request, the petitioner pledges his spirit to the service of the Deity in the afterlife. The GM may also rule that a Curse can be bestowed under other circumstances, such as when the petitioner is the last survivor of a family or group. Such curses must target the non-divine non-demonic non-devilish being responsible for actually carrying out the act. In return, the petitioner pledges his life to the service of the Deity.

If the point of death has not been reached, the proclivities (alignment) of the Deity becomes a factor.

• If the Deity is of Good alignment, a Curse will only be inflicted as punishment for an evil act.
• If the Deity is Neutral, a Curse will only be inflicted as a measure of Balance or unnatural act. It is not sufficient for the Curse to be in retribution for an act of extreme alignment. Furthermore, the act being punished must be in direct opposition to the portfolio of the Deity in question. For example, polluting a waterway would justify a curse by a god of Nature.
• If the Deity is Evil, a curse will only be inflicted if it will benefit the petitioner and be in retaliation for a specific act of a Good nature that directly impacts the petitioner.

When a Curse is petitioned, the Deity will announce a price in response. Depending on the personality of the Deity, they may or may not haggle, and may or may not demand payment in advance. This payment will usually be in the form of service, though that service may be indirect – the construction of a shrine or temple, the commission of a statue or artwork, the publication of a book of prayer or philosophy, the sponsoring of a charity or orphanage, the creation of a park, the sacrifice of the first-born or mate, the sabotage of a trade agreement.

It is usually easier to prepare a “price tag” in advance for deities when one of their followers is likely to be encountered.

Not all such requests will be granted, even as a dying act. People die, and get killed, all the time, and even the promise of service in the afterlife may not be sufficient to convince the deity to grant the request. Something about the circumstances needs to be exceptional, or the character making the bequest must be particularly valuable as a follower to the deity. Being a cleric or priest of the deity, and having been a faithful servant, is enough. Being the last of your kind is probably enough. But something exceptional needs to be involved – otherwise every sentient killed by a PC would inflict a curse!

The intent is not to make Curses as commonplace as the sunrise, but to make them more common, and more significant, than they currently are.

The role of Bestow Curse

Clerics (and other classes with access to clerical spells) can bestow Curses using the clerical spell without all this fuss, because they have been granted the authority by their Deities to act as their representative.

An additional requirement

A Curse cannot be successfully cast on a creature that could somehow benefit from it; if one is, the effects should be reinterpreted by the referee as much as necessary to inflict harm on the target. For example, a Curse which bestows a negative level, when cast on an undead, the referee should treat the ‘negative’ level as a positive one, reducing the number of HD of the target by 1 die, having the same effect that the Curse would have if it was cast on a non-undead creature.

The Nature Of A Curse

Curses come in two varieties: Temporary and Permanent (the latter including Curses of indefinite duration). In general, permanent Curses are less powerful than temporary ones because some of the energy of the Curse is diverted into making it last.

Curses as an Anti-Feat

This requires a standard to be set in terms of the effectiveness of Curses. Fortunately, such a standard already exists, codified to set a standard for the effectiveness of Feats. This standard is common to all my d20 campaigns, and I discussed it – amongst other things – in Exceeding The Extraordinary: The Meaning Of Feats. In a nutshell: A feat can confer +4 to a single specific check, +2 to two related specific checks or one type of saving throw, +1 to four related specific checks or to a single combat-related numeric value, an ability normally useful no more than once per round in combat or a more powerful combat ability that can only be used in specific circumstances or is otherwise constrained, or a non-combat class ability.

It seems entirely reasonable as a basic standard of effectiveness of a Curse to consider it to be an “Anti-feat”.

Relative Strength Of Curses

But there is a caveat: Because of the permanency of the effect, Bestow Curse must necessarily be weaker than other spells of equivalent level. This should be borne in mind by the GM when assessing proposed effects. Even minor curses can be life-threatening if the target never has the chance to remove it, and this should also be a consideration by the GM when adjudicating a Curse.

Permanent/Indefinite Curses

Most Curses are intended to last, until the subject of the curse has atoned for whatever misdeed prompted the curse. Such curses are the bedrock and standard apon which Curse mechanics are built.

Temporary Curses

A temporary Curse applies only until the target achieves some specific task, such as a pilgrimage to some specific shrine or temple, or fulfilling three tasks for the high priest of the city.
This alters the effectiveness of the curse by +25%, +0%, -25% or -50%, depending on the difficulty of the task to be achieved.

Until the task is achieved, a Remove Curse will only grant 24 hours relief. The basis of comparison should be the difficulty of completing the task.

• If the difficulty of the task is easier, there should be a +25% increase in the severity of the Curse.
• If about the same, there should be a 0% change.
• If a little harder – the equivalent of obtaining a Remove Curse from a specific priest – then the effectiveness of the Curse should be -25%.
• If a lot harder, then the effectiveness should be reduced 50%.

Sloppy wording of the condition eg “Until you atone for your transgressions” is considered to be equivalent to the default, as it is presumed that a priest will not Remove the Curse until he is satisfied that the character has done so. The final arbiter of any such judgments is the referee.

The subject of these curses can be absolved of the Curse as soon as the specified conditions are met.

Practicality and Idealism

Some Deities are realistic about the conditions to be fulfilled for absolution from a temporary curse, insisting that the condition be within the capabilities of the subject. Others are more idealistic and pay this no attention. The personality and attributes of the deity in question should be reflected in the specifications of the Curse. A curse establishes an extremely personal relationship between the caster, the subject, and the deity, which should be referenced every time the Curse’s effect has an impact on play. It may even be possible for the subject of the curse to pray for temporary relief if that would be in the best interests of the deity. A curse is an ongoing opportunity for roleplaying that should not be wasted.

Conditional Curses

A little additional ingenuity in the wording of a curse can greatly expand their functionality. “May [Curse] happen if you [do | do not do] X” is a perfectly acceptable syntax – “May your sword arm wither and rot if you betray your oath” for example. Where the “X” is an ongoing task, such as adhering to an oath, this is considered a permanent/indefinite curse which will last until the character is relieved of the obligation; where it is a task with a measurable conclusion, such as “erect the shrine within 30 days” or “place Baron Huschfeld on the throne”, it is a temporary curse.

Removing a Curse

One of the first questions a player will ask when his character is afflicted with a Curse should be “How do I get rid of it?”. Under the standard mechanics for Curses, the question is more likely to be “Where’s the closest cleric with Remove Curse” – assuming that another party member doesn’t have the spell, or even the character himself.

A key aspect of the changes to Curse mechanics is the alleviation of this condition. A Curse should be more significant and less of a passing inconvenience. It’s a third level spell in 3.x (and from memory used to be a 4th level spell in older editions of the game), after all.

There are two conditions under which a Curse can be removed without difficulty, so lets look at those first.

Lifting a Curse

The character who bestowed the Curse can lift it at any time – provided that it was not inflicted as a dying act, of course. Even then, it may be possible – but the difficulties are much greater; the subject can’t exactly intimidate the bestower, after all. However, the third party to the curse should also be involved; blackmailing or threatening the bestower of the Curse will not win any favors with the deity in question, and far from lifting the original curse, the subject may well find himself saddled with a second.

Absolution

Curses with built-in limited duration conditions are subject to Absolution as soon as the conditions are met. The effects of the curse are lifted immediately, though the curse may be re-imposed if the subject then acts on opposition to the condition. You can’t be cursed until a shrine is built, build the shrine, and then immediately destroy it. You can’t put someone on the throne and then immediately attempt to undermine, usurp, or make the new ruler a figurehead. In other words, the spirit of the curse is just as important as the letter.

To be released from the danger of Re-imposition, the subject requires a priest – any priest or cleric not opposed to the deity who empowered the original Curse – to Absolve the character, ie to acknowledge that he has completed his penance, learned from his mistake, and forgive the original offence. Once this is done, the character is free to act however he sees fit with no sword of Damocles hanging overhead.

This places a reasonable amount of responsibility on the shoulders of clerics and priests, and senility sometimes causes absolution to be granted when it should not be. Religious orders are usually fairly wary of failing faculties and will often retire a priest they suspect of becoming a little vague, because it is their reputation that is on the line.

Absolution can also be granted retrospectively if the subject dies in the attempt to redeem himself.

Absolution & The afterlife

Absolution has a second effect that can be quite significant – it means that the crime for which the curse was imposed can no longer be held against the subject when he enters the afterlife and faces judgment. This can be a significant spur to a character’s decisions. As a character gets older and more aware of their own mortality, some may choose to find a cleric and confess to the worst of their past misdeeds, requesting a curse that permits them to earn absolution before it is too late. Of course, the choice of which Deity from which the character chooses to make this request has a very big bearing on the outcome – and on what is considered a misdeed.

The net effect is that behavior tends becomes more extreme as characters get older. This is especially true of NPCs – PCs generally being less willing to bow to any restrictions on their behavior will tend to take their chances and worry about tomorrow on the day after.

Again, this is a source for a roleplaying encounter or two if the party includes a cleric. An NPC or two seeking absolution makes an excellent subplot and a nice seasoning as a cohort or other follower.

Breaking A Curse

The other way out of a Curse is to Break it. Once broken, a curse can be Removed. Curses can only be broken be a cleric, a deity, or another character type with access to clerical spells.

Breaking a curse is a violent act, as is implied by the name of the process. The act of casting Remove Curse triggers a metaphysical confrontation between the bestower of the curse and the cleric attempting to break it. The former is represented by the DC of the Curse, while the latter is on hand. It should also be obvious that unless the Deity who granted the curse is especially capricious in nature, the cleric must have a different patron to the original deity.

The cleric attempting to break the curse generates a Spellcraft total and compares it to the target DC while casting Remove Curse. If the result is equal to or greater than the DC, the Curse is broken.

Curse DCs

If the Curse was bestowed by a Cleric, that cleric should roll a Spellcraft check which becomes the DC for breaking the spell. If the curse was bestowed by someone other than a cleric, the DC is 15. These values may receive a +5 if the Deity bestowing the curse is strongly in favor of the act. Dying-act curses may also receive up to an additional +5. A Curse bestowed directly by a Deity automatically has a DC of 25, plus the +5 for being strongly in favor, for a total of 30. In practice, the average DC is going to be around 20-25.

If the cleric attempting to break the Curse is of the same alignment as the original bestower, he receives a -5 to his Spellcraft check to Break the curse. If he is of an opposed alignment, he receives a +5. This means that the best person to break a curse from an Evil deity is a cleric of Good, and vice-versa.

Despite antagonistic alignments, deities may refuse to break a Curse if there is presently no strife between them and the deity who empowered the original Curse. Breaking someone else’s curse is a hostile act, and earns the enmity of the deity who imposed it. Some people will attempt to boost their chances by stirring up rivalries and ill-will in advance – but this can in itself be a dangerous business; if the deity being beseeched was offended by the actions of the subject, they may add a curse of their own to the mix.

Failure is a definite set-back – each cleric gets only one shot at a Curse at the original DC. If they fail, they can’t try again until they have gained another level as a clerical spell user, and there is a -2 penalty to their Spellcraft check for each failure. It only takes a few failures for the DC to exceed the capabilities of the cleric, effectively permanently. This encourages those wishing to break a Curse to seek out the highest-ranking cleric they can find – and those fellows usually charge a lot of money for their time and effort.

Compound Curses

Being Cursed by two deities of antagonistic alignment at the same time is the worst of all possible outcomes, because clerics of either alignment will recognize the ‘taint’ of the Curse to which they are not antagonistic and refuse to aid the character. Characters who are subject to multiple Curses are in real trouble even if the cleric agrees to make the attempt, as the cleric’s target DC is the sum of the DCs of BOTH curses, which usually puts the target beyond the abilities of all but the most powerful.

Curses and Spell Focus

Spell Focus can be used to raise the spell’s save DC, unlike most Necromantic Spells. It follows that there are three groups whose Curses are especially potent, and hence exceptionally difficult to break: Deities, the High Priest or Archprelate of a particular faith, and clerics who specialize in bestowing Curses.

Spell Focus can also be employed to assist in Breaking a curse.

Inheriting A Curse

If a deity or the beseeching individual is especially put out, they may choose to make a Curse generational, affecting not only the subject but their entire family, or their first-born in each successive generation, or all their descendants of a particular gender, or all their descendants, or all their relatives. This sacrifices some of the DC for breaking the Curse in exchange for generalizing the target.

• Entire Family (by blood): -2
• First-born descendant each generation: -4
• All descendants of a particular gender: -6
• All descendants: -8
• All relatives now living and their descendants: -10
• Excluding the original target: +1 (offsets the above modifiers only)

Detecting A Curse

Detecting the presence of a Curse is easy – just cast the first level spell. Clerics can even make a WIS check while holding the hand or blessing a character to get a hint that the character has either been cursed themselves or that they have been associating with someone who has been, especially if the effects of a Curse have actually affected the person being examined. The DC of such a Wisdom check is 40 minus the DC for breaking the spell – so the hardest Curses to break are the most easily detected.

Identifying the specifics of a Curse is equally easy, once the presence of a Curse is proven (not merely suspected). It merely requires the cleric or religious figure – a Paladin can do it – to pray over the character for a while. The number of hours of prayer required is equal to the DC of detecting the Curse as specified in the previous paragraph.

While being examined, the subject of the investigation must not perform any activity that would require a skill check, and must not do anything relating to a deity other than the one being invoked during the investigation. Priests, Clerics, and Paladins will normally insist on Blessing the character before commencing, simply to remove any spiritual “aftertaste” of other deities that the subject might have with him. It is also normal for the subject to remove all magic items and clothing, wearing only a simple penitent’s robe – essentially, a smock of cotton, wool, or burlap – for the same reason. Individual faiths may have further requirements, but for most these are sufficient.

As the prayers continue, the Minister conducting the prayer service will begin to sense the intensity of the Curse (ie, how difficult it will be to break), the name of the Deity who granted the Curse, the nature of the curse’s effects, any conditions attached to the Curse, and finally the reason for the curse – the deed that caused the subject to be Cursed in the first place. Only when all of these are known and acknowledged by the subject can the process of Breaking the curse begin.

Cursed Items

“I curse this weapon. Any who claim it will be driven to avenge me.”

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using a desirable weapon with a curse attached as a plot device. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be a magic item. Once the Curse is complete, the character gets the weapon. If he should fall in the process, it will wait for the next person to come along and take his place – however long it takes.

Such curses are not part of the weapon, they merely use it as a conduit, but they will still be detected by a Detect Curse spell. However, even putting such a weapon into a backpack or other storage device with the intent to sell or analyze it later is enough to invoke the curse, and actually selling it does not relieve the curse, simply passes the potential to another like a time bomb with no visible timer. Only when the PC succeeds or dies will it go off.

Such curses have to be broken not once, but twice. The first time breaks the curse on the character, freeing him, but leaving the curse itself lurking intact within the item. The second Breaking must be directed at the weapon itself. This circumstance is the only exception to the rule about multiple attempts at breaking a curse, since the second Curse Breaking can only proceed after the success of the first. That still does not grant multiple attempts at breaking either curse, it only permits a single attempt at Un-cursing the item once a religious figure has successfully broken the hold of the curse on an individual.

Note, also, that the item must be present to be prayed over in order to break the curse within it.

Sneaky Moral Tricks

PCs will already be wary of treasures after players read the above section. At the same time, the potential for a desirable weapon with a built-in mini-quest would have to be tempting, if the item is attractive enough. The problem is that characters have to “buy” the item before they get to inspect the merchandise – or, in this case, accept the curse before knowing how useful the treasure will be. Alignment questions can also become entwined in the whole issue – a character can break the curse but still be compelled by his alignment to complete the task that would have nullified it.

More subtle variations

If the GM suspects that even this might not be tolerable by his players – contrary creatures at the best of times – he can place am item with a more subtle Curse, for example a temporary curse that only affects the character when he scores a critical hit – or when her is subjected to a critical hit – or when he uses a specific skill or ability. How tempting would a +4 or +5 weapon or suit of armor be, even with such a price-tag? And if the player is truly unhappy with the price tag, he can always expend money in attempts to break the curse; either way, the GM gets a plotline out of the deal.

A list of suggested Curses

I’m going to close this article with a long list of suggested curses. These should be just a starting point for your creativity… Have fun out there!

1. -3 penalty to the three physical characteristics (STR, DEX, CON) or -3 penalty to the three mental/emotional abilities (INT, WIS, DEX).
2. -1 penalty on all characteristics.
3. -4 to one particular variety of Saving Throw (Fort, Reflex, or Will).
4. -8 to saves against a particular magic descriptor.
5. All spells cast by the target henceforth have an additional material component of 25xp per spell level.
6. The Cursed creature cannot speak except to cast spells.
7. -8 to all skill checks tied to a single specific ability.
8. -4 penalty to all skill checks.
9. -12 penalty to all skill checks against a single specific skill.
10. -4 ‘clumsiness’ penalty to AC.
11. -6 ‘clumsiness’ penalty to all attack rolls.
12. Save DCs against the Cursed creature’s spells or innate abilities are reduced by 4.
13. The creature cannot declare any creatures to be allies for the purposes of flanking, moving through squares, spell effects, etc.
14. Every 2nd attack made by the subject creature must be against an ally. The subject will drop his weapon to change to a ranged weapon and/or move up to his maximum as necessary to achieve this.
15. -3 penalty to all attack and damage rolls.
16. The creatures damaging spells only inflict half damage.
17. The creature cannot confirm critical hits.
18. The cursed creature always receives the minimum healing from spells.
19. The character loses all special sight (low-light vision, darkvision, etc) and is immune to any spells which bestow such abilities.
20. The target cannot make attacks of opportunity.
21. The target suffers 1hp of sonic damage every round that someone within 30′ speaks, per speaker.
22. The target can no longer cast spells with an alignment descriptor (any alignment descriptor).
23. Any time the creature rolls a 1 in melee combat, he must make a reflex save against DC 14 or drop any and all weapons used in the attack.
24. The target cannot heal wounds except by magic.
25. The target cannot eat or drink and therefore cannot benefit from magical potions or effects like Heroes Feast.
26. The target loses the ability to read.
27. The target cannot use any Metamagic Feats.
28. The target is affected by a Nightmare spell (Caster Level 9) every night.
29. The target loses all armor proficiencies.
30. The target loses all weapon proficiencies.
31. The target must make a Balance check at DC 15 to move more than half its speed in a round.
32. Every time the target uses a charged item, he causes the item to expend an additional d6 charges to no effect.
33. Every time the target uses a charged item, he causes the item to expend an additional charge which is inflicted apon himself.
34. All possible critical hits against the target are automatically confirmed.
35. Ability damage inflicted against the character is treated as ability drain.
36. The target is denied its Dexterity bonus to armor class.
37. The target is Slowed whenever it is within an enemy’s threatened squares.
38. Allies must defeat SR 21 to target the Cursed Creature with spells.
39. Making a single attack becomes a full-round action for the target. The target cannot make iterative attacks or attacks with two weapons.
40. Any time takes damage (magical or otherwise) from flame or heat (including Fireballs, etc), the character catches on fire (refer DMG for consequences).
41. The character suffers from a phobia or fear. Whenever the object of the phobia or fear is encountered or threatens the character, he must make a Will save against a DC of 15 or cower in fear. If the save succeeds, the character is Shaken. Phobias include darkness, open spaces, confined spaces, heights, depths, running water, open water, thunderstorms, spiders, undead, insects, birds, dragons, etc etc.
42. In melee, the subject of the Curse cannot move to flee or threaten another creature (but can attack any enemies that move into its threat range).
43. All allies of the target suffer a -2 on attack rolls and skill checks when within 60′ of the target.
44. The character’s ranged attacks are limited to a single range band.
45. The character suffers -4 caster levels (to a minimum of 1).
46. The character must eat 4 times as much food as normal in order to survive (but gains weight as though they did not). If the character fails to eat sufficient food, he is considered to suffer from Starvation.
47. The character must drink 8 times as much water as normal. If he does not, he is considered to be suffering from Dehydration.
48. The character loses up to four magic item slots. Items in those slots have no effect. The caster of the Curse must specify the slots using a single word description.
49. Whenever the target strikes an opponent in melee combat, he suffers 1d6 damage (doubled if the character achieves a critical hit).
50. The target’s Spell Resistance (if any) is reduced by 4 points.
51. The creature bleeds at the rate of 1hp per round per dice of damage inflicted in melee.
52. The creature is required to provide an attack of opportunity each time he takes a 5′ step in melee.
53. The creature earns only 75% of the experience they would normally receive.
54. The target suffers 1d6 damage per round that they hold or touch a particular type of weapon or object.
55. The target suffers 2d6 damage per round that they hold or touch a specific weapon or object.
56. The target experiences the effects of a Polymorph spell for approximately half a day, every day. The caster of the Curse must specify either a daily trigger event (eg midnight, noon, dawn, sunset, moonrise, moonset) or specific time interval with a one-word description (eg daytime, nighttime) or other similar condition which activates the Curse. The character acts as a normal member of the population of his Polymorphed form would but remembers his actions in that form when he is restored to normal. The other form must be of a half-hit-dice creature or less.
57. The target experiences the effects of a Polymorph spell for approximately 1/4 of the time, as specified by the caster of the Curse. These must be linked to a particular season, phase of the moon, or other such naturally-recurring phenomenon. While in his other form, the target acts as a hostile member of the population of that form. The other form must be of a 1-hit-dice creature or less.
58. The target experiences the effects of a Polymorph spell for 1 hour after experiencing a specified common event of activity. The character acts as a rabid or extremely hostile member of the population of that form. The other form must be of a 2-hit-dice creature or less.
59. The target spends any money that comes into his possession (above 25 GP per character level) as quickly as possible. He must make a will save against a DC of 20 to refuse any offered item. He cannot give this money away, or tithe it, or give it to someone else for safekeeping, or store it.
60. The target spends any money that comes into his possession (above 100 GP per character level) as quickly as possible. He must make a will save against a DC of 20 to refuse any offered item. He cannot give this money away, or tithe it, or give it to someone else for safekeeping, or store it. He must immediately sell any magic items he possesses whose values exceed this limit.

One Final Mention

One final thought that’s worth mentioning, and which has also had its part to play in inspiring some of the content above: a slight reimagining of the Curse of Edaemus from The Shining Ones by David Eddings, (Book 2 of The Tamuli). Edaemus cursed the waters of the lake where his people lived, which already caused them to glow, so that their touch inflicted the rot of the grave in mere seconds AND gave them a telepathic link to those they could see. In time, they learned to control these ‘gifts’ – but consider the horror of the situation before they did. They not only caused sufficient fear in those who beheld them to provoke insanity and gibbering in terror, the telepathic link meant that they would have felt every moment of their victim’s pain and terror, and feel the rotting of tissues as the curse manifested.

Talk about your Gothic Fantasy! That’s the power of a well-constructed curse to add flavor…

Some game systems have rules built in for character aging. Others don’t.

Some of those aging rules function gracefully. Others don’t, or are shockingly clumsy.

This post is all about how I handle character aging in my campaigns – gracefully and relatively painlessly.

The Harbinger Of Aging

Quite early on in my GMing career, I wrote up some sophisticated aging rules for AD&D, which took the rather loose guidelines provided in the PHB and DMG and turned them into a functional system. A couple of the key features of the system were:

Aging checks

There were no automatic “X years older gives X points of stat loss”. Instead, characters made a CON-based saving roll against a target based on their age and history. If they failed, it indicated a characteristic loss or other ageing symptom. On a critical failure, this occurred immediately and permanently. If they succeeded, the size of the next potential characteristic loss increased, and the target for the next check became harder to achieve, but there was otherwise no effect. If they got a critical success, the target for the next check still became harder, but there was no other impact.

Shrinking intervals

These age checks took place at intervals across the entire average lifespan of the race in question that steadily declined in size. When characters first started adventuring, they could look forward to making their first check in about a decade, game time, for humans, about 50 years for Dwarves, etc. These intervals would gradually get shorter until they became once a year, at which point the rate of increase would slow eventually becoming twice a year, then three times, and so on.

In fact, it was tracked as the number of days until the next check.

Modifiers

There were all sorts of modifiers – to the number of days until the next check, to the number of days since the last check, to the target required for success, and to the size of the potential impact of a failure. Each night spent “roughing it” while adventuring counted as two days toward the next check, for example – hard living brought aging forward – but it also counted as a day of exercise, and every ten days spent exercising between intervals improved the chance of success by 1%. Each day spent in decadent luxury counted as three days towards the next check, but also counted as a day of rest. If you rested ten days in a row, you negated the extra days accrued by ten days hard adventuring.

In particular, each time that the character was reduced to 25% hit points was counted as an extra day; each time the character was reduced to 10% hit points or less counted as two extra days.

Warning Niggles

The system was set up to reward an appropriate “work-life balance” long before the term came into vogue. After each adventure, the characters needed to rest – how badly they needed to rest, and for how long, were dependant on the character’s constitution. If characters rested too long, they would get out of condition. Both of these would result in “warning niggles” – passing mention of an ingrown toenail, a stiff back in the mornings, and the like. As an aging check approached, this would also be signaled by a series of warning niggles.

Abandoning this subsystem

This particular aging subsystem didn’t last beyond my first couple of campaigns (I’m a little surprised that I remember it so clearly). But its legacy lives on in the approach that I use for aging in my current campaigns. (NB: this is the first time they’ve ever been codified in writing)…

Growing Old Gracefully

I always felt that growing older didn’t change the personality or expectations of a person. They still wanted to do the same things as they were doing twenty years earlier, but no matter how willing the spirit was, the flesh was weak; an accumulation of little niggles handicapped the ability. Having aged a few decades since first formulating the aging subsystem discussed above, I stand by that perception. I don’t feel 49 years old – I feel 25 with encumbrances that prevent me from acting like I was 25.

Another part of the aging process is learning to manage those encumbrances. Compromising how much I do, how hard I work, permits me to achieve more in the long run by not aggravating the various infirmities that have accumulated. Compromising how I do things slightly – relying less on my own memory, for example, and more on my ability to take reminder notes – is actually more efficient because I spend less time getting up to speed each time I resume a task. My particular case is compromised by a degenerative ailment, but the principles are the same – the tolerances are just tighter.

I don’t run any more, for example. My knees and back won’t permit it, save in cases of emergency. That doesn’t mean that I can’t do it – just that the price of that type and level of exertion would cost me more in lost capacity in the long run. I stop and rest after walking a few city blocks, if I can – not because I can’t walk any further, but because doing so will leave me bedridden the next day. At the same time, there are limits to how far I can walk comfortably, and exceeding them not only causes distress and reduced capacity for some months afterwards, part of that loss is permanent.

Aging, then, is an accumulation of niggles, and an increasing cost of performing activities, and a diminution of the ability to recover.

Life Increments

My whole approach to aging is somewhat different, these days. I no longer enforce stat loss on characters, instead suggesting that the players make appropriate adjustments. They key to determining how many such adjustments are needed is the concept of Life Increments:

Life Increment = (Average Lifespan – Age of maturity)/20,
+0.5 for each physical stat 16-20
+1 for each physical stat 21-25
+1.5 for each physical stat 26-30, and so on;
-0.25 for each physical stat 6-10,
-0.5 for each physical stat 4-5,
-0.75 for each physical stat 2-3,
-1 for each physical stat 0-1 (D&D scales, adjust as necessary for other game systems).

Physical stats in D&D are STR, DEX, CON, CHAR.

EG Generic D&D Human:
Life Increment = (65-25)/20 = 40/20 = 2 years. So every 2 years after they achieve maturity is an additional 5% of their allotted span.

EG2: D&D Human with STR 18, DEX 15, INT 22, WIS 14, CON 16, CHAR 16:
Life Increment = 2 +0.5 (STR) +0.5 (CON) +0.5 (CHAR) = 3.5. So every 3.5 years after they achieve maturity is an additional 5% of their allotted span, gone.

When the appropriate time comes, I simply inform the player, “Your character is another 5% older than he was” and ask how they think that will affect the character’s stats. As part of the process of justifying their decisions, I will also usually characterize what the character has been doing for that time – “Adventuring too hard too often”, “maintaining a reasonable balance between rest and adventuring”, “spending too much time sitting down and arguing politics with the king and not enough exercising”, and so on. In general, there will be minimal changes until the character is about 50% old. I keep track of the number of life increments consumed.

Why this is better: No rolls, easy to calculate, rarely consumes game or prep time, very fast.

Serious Injuries

Every time a character drops to 10% of their hit points or less, assuming they survive, their life increments drop by 10%, and I add another life increment to the “consumed” tally. So the character gets 5% older prematurely, and their overall lifespan reduces. This is regardless of any healing that may be done and represents accumulated wear and tear. However, a character gets a number of these as “freebies” equal to their CON bonus (D&D scale), minimum of zero. The serious injuries count resets at zero each time the total triggers an adjustment.

Why this is better: No rolls, easy to track, minimal time & effort required, but still very responsive to individual circumstances.

Going Hard

Another key component of my current approach is the need to rest after any period of prolonged exertion. Every 2 days of adventuring or rough living adds one day to the total rest required to get rid of the accumulated discomforts and niggles that have built up.

Every 2+CON BONUS (D&D scale) days that the character has spent adventuring counts as 1 day that they need to rest. Before they can start counting rest days toward this total, they first need to rest for 1 day for every life increment they have lived.

Hard living adds discomforts to daily life, which are expressed as Niggles. On the assumption that a character will be more attuned to changes in their highest stat(s) and more susceptible to changes in their weakest stat(s), I will choose a niggle appropriately.

These niggles arrive at Niggle Intervals.

Niggle Interval (D&D scale) = 4 + CON – Life Increments consumed, minimum 1.

Eg CON 12, Age in Life Increments 4 gives Niggle Interval = 12 days.
Eg CON 12, Age in Life Increments 12 gives Niggle Interval = 4+12-12 = 4 days.
Eg CON 17, Age in Life Increments 12 gives Niggle Interval = 4+17-12 = 9 days.

Each niggle received reduces the Niggle interval by 1. So the next niggle arrives a day sooner. When the interval gets to zero, the character needs to rest (if he hasn’t done so before then). When he rests for long enough, the Niggles go away and the Niggle Interval resets.

Combat Effects of Niggles

None, nada, zip. Niggles are strictly a roleplaying cue. But as a character gets older, they will arrive more quickly, and give the impression of an older character. See also “Long-term consdequences” below.

Resting

Resting means loafing around for a day. In the wilderness, even in an idyllic location, each day counts as only half a day for resting purposes. In a civilized environment (eg an Inn), Spartan accommodations also only count as half a day, while luxury counts as a-day-and-a-half. Luxury accommodations in an idyllic location might count as double. As GM, I tweak these values constantly to reflect the circumstances. Characters can read, relax, feast, drink, stroll the markets, buy goods, play games, gamble – in fact, do just about anything that might normally be done on a vacation or day off. But they can’t undertake any strenuous activities, engage in combat, conduct serious spell research, or anything of that sort – if they do, the day doesn’t count.

Again, what is acceptable activity and what is not is variable depending on the character and circumstances – spending a day in solitary contemplation might count for a Monk or a martial artist, but would not do much for mage fascinated by politics or a fighter with a low threshold of boredom. This is about roleplay, not system mechanics!

Going Home

Soft living relaxes one’s tolerance for discomfort. This is a progressive effect:

• when characters are actively adventuring, a period of rest eases any accumulated discomforts, so when they first set out on a new adventure, I will make no mention of such.
• If they stay inactive for a little longer – say twice as long – when they do finally get going again, the first day or two (perhaps as much as a week) will be a compound of niggles as they work the kinks out and get back into shape, annoying discomforts as they get used to roughing it again, and a slightly giddying elation at the sense of independence and liberation from tedium. It will be an adventure, and overall, it will feel good to get back in the saddle.
• If they stay sedentary and inactive for longer again – say three times as long – any exertion will trigger niggles and discomforts, which I will work into the flavor text describing their day’s activities.
• If they stay sedentary and inactive for a lot longer – say, ten times as long as it takes them to rest up – they will start to experience niggles even without a triggering exertion. This might include having trouble fitting into clothing as they gain a few pounds, a shortness of breath after climbing a long set of stairs, and so on.

Long-term consequences

If characters don’t rest, or adventure too long, what are the consequences? At the time, none whatsoever. These niggles are just a cue for roleplaying, and the players are perfectly at liberty to ignore the prompts.

In general, though, they won’t. Firstly, because they give them the opportunity to put a different aspect of the character on display for a while, and do something different, Secondly, because there are always useful things that can be done in down-time; and Thirdly, because they will always be concerned that I might impose a combat modifier due to their niggles if they grow too frequent or pronounced.

Misses, Failures, and Fumbles

I feed that fear by frequently describing the results of any sort of failed die roll in terms of niggles (if any). So when characters are freshly out of town, a miss might be due to a lucky dodge by the opponent, or a leathery hide, or a blow bouncing off armor – but when they’ve been on the road for a while, it might be a muscle twinge, or a sudden cramp, or a moment of reverie. When the rogue blows his stealth roll, he might stumble – or he might sneeze.

Why this is better: Minimal math, no die rolling. Easy to track. It adds to roleplay and verisimilitude without becoming burdensome, gives you a source of flavor text, but doesn’t straightjacket players with an arbitrary aging system that has to be slavishly followed.

It’s not a set of rules; it’s a set of guidelines – and inspiration. It’s a way of Simulating ageing without forcing anything down a player’s throat – or onto their character sheet.

Most game systems are great when it comes to a precise definition of what a character can or can’t do, but there are any number of occasions when the level of precision they impart and entail is overkill. The result is that character generation takes a lot longer than is really justified by the intended role of the NPC within the campaign.

While preparing an NPC for my shared pulp campaign, I had a moment of inspiration. A short-cut to NPC generation that I immediately put into practice and which immediately proved its value. Now, I’m going to share that moment of insight with GMs everywhere. I’ll start by looking at the specific case that led to this idea, and then move on to a more generalized description of the technique.

“Creepy” as a skill

The NPC that I was creating was a butler. While he was to be no particular threat, we wanted his personality, tone of voice, manner of expression, behavior, etc to be, well, “creepy”. Now I could have spent a lot of time specifying skills and abilities and disadvantages and so on in order to define exactly what “creepy” meant in terms of the system mechanics – but time was short and there were better things to expend it on.

The solution was to define “Creepy” as a skill like any other within the Hero System. Suddenly, there was a full set of game mechanics at our disposal – whenever he interacted with a PC, we could simply have him roll his “Creepiness” skill and – if successful – describe the reaction he had engendered in the listening PCs. If they wanted to resist the effect, we could have them oppose the roll.

In effect, we plugged an abstract quality directly from the character description into the game mechanics, hardwiring it to the rules system. It was that simple.

The Limits of the solution

The more involved with the PCs an NPC is going to be, the more closely that NPC should be built to PC standards. An NPC who adventures with the PCs should be as fully-detailed as they are.

A lesser standard is required for characters who are just there to be in a fight. There’s not a lot of need for background skills, but battle-related stats will need to be specified. In D&D terms, for example, the minimum would be Attack, Damage, AC, Initiative, HP, and Saves. In the hero games system, OCV, DCV, Damage, SPD, Body, Stun, and END would be the absolute minimum.

But when the NPC is just there to be a personality or an advisor, this approach offers a way to dramatically reduce the requirements, saving a lot of time and effort.

The General Technique

Using this technique is a two-step process.

Define an abstract quality

The abstract quality that the system is summing up should be defined as simply as possible, and should encompass as much of the uniqueness of the character as possible, preferably all with a single word.

Set the Associated Skill Level

You have two contrasting and possibly contradictory considerations in the second step. The first is deciding on the absolute frequency with which the abstract quality that you have described is going to come into effect; the second is the relative measure of how easily you want PCs to be able to overcome or resist the effect. If necessary, come up with two separate numbers and average them, but most of the time there will be a compromise available.

This requires that you really understand the system mechanics and their basis in probability. If you are talking about rolling 3d6 and aiming to get the target score or less, then you have to know how increasing the target by 1 affects the likelyhood of success.

Of course, this is really easy with a d20 system where each +1 growth in the target equates to a 5% increase in the likelyhood of success.

Assessing the relative level requires some understanding of the attribute scores that your PCs (or NPCs) can bring to bear in opposition or resistance to the desired effect. If the average resistance is d20+3, then d20+5 appears to give a 10% chance of success – but examining the statistics tells a different story. If the goal is to get the bigger total, as it usually is in these opposed rolls, then the actual number of cases out of 400 (20×20) that result in success for the d20+3 is 17+16+15+14+13+12+11+10+9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1 = 153 out of 400, or 38.25%.

How did I get that result? Well, the minimum result of d20+5 is 6, so the minimum result to beat that result on d20+3 is going to be 7. Seven minus 3 means that the lower score wins on a roll of 4 or better – which happens 17 times out of 20. With each +1 to the result on the d20+5 roll, the minimum result required for success goes up by 1 – so if the d20+5 roll is a 2, the target is 7, so an 8 is required, which requires a roll of 5, which happens 15 times in 20. The pattern obviously continues until you get to 0 times in 20.

That gives the string of numbers that I added together – the one that runs 17+16+15+… and so on. Multiplying the number of possible results on each die (20 x 20) gave me the 400.

I also cheated on the addition. If we set the “..+2+1” part at the end aside, and add the highest to the lowest, we get 17+3 + 16+4 + 15+5 + … and so on. It only takes some quick counting on fingers to find that the eight result is “10+10” – but there’s only one ten, so that also has to be set aside. So the total is 7×20 + 10 + 2 + 1 = 153. I only pulled the calculator out for the last part – converting 153/400 to a percentage.

Some more examples

There are all sorts of ways this technique can be applied. Here are just a few of them:

• “Emotionless” – on a fail, the character exhibits an emotion.
• “Rigid Self-control” – on a fail, the character exhibits a reaction when surprised, given bad news, given good news, etc.
• “Foolish” – on a success, the character does something stupid or silly.
• “Deceptive” – on a success, the character projects the reaction or impression that he desires to express and not his true feelings or intent.
• “Politician” – on a success, the character says or does whatever he thinks is going to be the most popular/beneficial regardless of his true intent or belief.
• “Charming” – on a success, the character makes the person he’s speaking to feel comfortable, safe, secure, at home.
• “Wealthy” – on a success, the character attempts to use money to solve whatever problem he currently has.
• “Pious” – on a success, the character exhibits his faith, resists doubt, disbelieves evidence to the contrary, etc.
• “Redneck” – on a success, the character acts like a redneck. (duh!)
• “Italian” – on a success, the character acts like a stereotypical Italian.

Any adjective can be treated in this fashion. Just choose your description and let it be your character!

Going Even Further

It doesn’t have to be just NPCs, either. This approach also works – perhaps better than anything else I’ve ever seen – from defining organizations…
 

• Formal
• Casual
• Greedy
• Public-spirited
• Arrogant
• Militaristic
• Progressive
• Conservative
• Radical
• Violent
• Pro-Farmer
• Bookish

 
…to governments…
 

• Stuffy
• Sanctimonious
• Defensive
• Paranoid
• Martial
• Subversive

 
…to laws…
 

• Protective
• Permissive
• Conspiratorial
• Vengeful
• Fiery
• Myopic
• Effervescent

 
…to anything else that can be described with an adjective! Weapons, animals, cars, wagons, pets, spices, novels, music, poetry, clothing, artwork, recipes… these can all exhibit a personality, as I discussed in With An Evil Gleam.

An organization example: “Florid 14/-“

“Florid” means ornate, flowery, showy, ruddy, or high-colored. So, an organization that is “florid” has:

• A lot of bureaucracy, especially detailed forms that need to be filled out and about which they are very fussy;
• A very strong and showy public relations department;
• A penchant for dramatic gestures and big, showy projects;
• A tendency to make big, even boastful claims;
• A liking for making speeches;
• The habit of using flowery and long-winded statements, filled with grandiosities and showy excess, and probably short of a lot of practical detail.

So whenever a PC interacts with this organization, or reads about them in the paper, or whatever, you simply have to roll the die and interpret the results.

A government example: “Repressive 5/- Paranoid 5/- Blunt 5/- Militant 10/-“

There are 25 combinations when you have 4 attributes. Any given action by the government can be:

• Repressive but not Paranoid, Blunt, or Militant
• Paranoid but not Repressive, Blunt, or Militant

…

• Repressive and Paranoid but not Blunt or Militant

…and so on, through combinations of three at a time, culminating in a final:

• Repressive, Paranoid, Blunt, and Militant

There are so many combinations that it is really quite inconvenient thinking about them, even counter-productive. Instead, think about each attribute, and it’s opposite.

• Actions can be Repressive, ie designed to pick on one particular sub-population or practice that would normally be tolerated or even accepted – or encouraging, designed to make a particular practice or policy more attractive to the general population.
• Decisions can be Paranoid, targeting enemies real, theoretical, or imagined, or they can be optimistic, assuming that people will support the government.
• Phrasing and applicability can be blunt, or they can be subtle and discrete.
• Decisions can be militant, emphasizing enforcement, or passive, expecting cooperation.

For example, consider a change in tax policy. A repressive policy might be to triple the number of annual audits while targeting one particular group for no specific reason. An encouraging one might be a tax rebate equal to half the additional tax recovered to anyone who (in confidence) informs on a tax cheat. A Paranoid policy might add imprisonment and/or steep fines or even seizure of property to be paid on suspicion of tax evasion and pending the investigation, while an optimistic one would assume that everyone is trying to do the right thing to the best of their understanding and hence levy no punishments whatsoever short of a bill for the additional tax owed. Blunt tax laws might start by describing tax evasion as a crime and then referring to people throughout the tax code as “suspected criminals” or “criminal tax evaders”. A subtle and discrete tax law would use four paragraphs of dense legalese to define the word “tax” – “a debt incurred through the accumulation of profits and revenues consequent to employment, labor, ownership of business or property (whether encumbered or otherwise) and on and on and on… . Finally, we have militant (automatic mandatory audits and if you don’t lodge a return, nosy people come around asking “why not?”) or passive, which assume that people who don’t lodge a return don’t have to pay taxes at all.

In practice, I think that four such traits are too many. Pick one that’s overwhelming and one secondary choice at most. “Militant 10/- and Paranoid 5/-” is enough to characterize a government.

I could continue with more examples, but I think the point has been made…

Skill Applications

One final note, added at the very last minute: you can use the same technique to synopsise tricky skill sets. “Lensman 15/-” works perfectly well. So does “Green Lantern 10/-“. Or “Mad scientist 16/-“…

Only a short article this week (at least in terms of word count) because there is easily five times as much work beneath the surface!

A few weeks ago, I read a really interesting analysis of the mathematics of the D&DNext advantage mechanic by the Online DM. And yet, there was a disconnect between that analysis and the actual situation in which that mechanic would be employed that meant that I still didn’t have a feel for the impact and implications that the new system would actually have in play.

So this week I wanted to go beyond the maths provided by the Online DM (and others) and think about the consequences.

Recapping The Results

The Online GM reduced his results to a single table, showing the % chance of success based on what you needed to roll in order to succeed, under three different conditions: a straight d20 roll, when you had Advantage, and when you were Disadvantaged.

The Mechanic

When you are adjudged to have the advantage, you roll two d20s instead of one and keep the best result. When you are adjudged to be at a disadvantage, you roll two d20s instead of one and keep the worst result. When neither side has the advantage, you roll a single d20.

The Table Of Results

The results from the Online GM were:

Target	d20	With Advantage	With Disadvantage
1	100%	100%	100%
2	95%	99.75%	90.25%
3	90%	99.00%	81.00%
4	85%	97.75%	72.25%
5	80%	96.00%	64.00%
6	75%	93.75%	56.25%
7	70%	91.00%	49.00%
8	65%	87.75%	42.25%
9	60%	84.00%	36.00%
10	55%	79.75%	30.25%
11	50%	75.00%	25.00%
12	45%	69.75%	20.25%
13	40%	64.00%	16.00%
14	35%	57.75%	12.25%
15	30%	51.00%	9.00%
16	25%	43.75%	6.25%
17	20%	36.00%	4.00%
18	15%	27.75%	2.25%
19	10%	19.00%	1.00%
20	5%	9.75%	0.25%
21	0%	0%	0%

The shortcomings of this result

This table of results is not as useful as it could have been, for the simple reason that the key variable by which they are indexed is not one that is immediately at-hand, but is the result of an earlier calculation – one that the system doesn’t actually require determining. The actual mechanic is to roll dice, add bonuses or penalties, and compare the result to the target number set by the DM.

Rather than the results of the analysis being instinctively understood and directly applicable by the GM to assess the impact, he has to interpret a theoretical situation, translate the result into the appropriate entry on the table, and then interpret the results. It’s no surprise that the significance of the mechanism is not readily accessible for most GMs.

Well, if that’s the problem, let’s fix it.

Relative Impact

As a first step, let’s rewrite that table of results so that instead of giving an absolute percentage of success, it displays the impact of the advantage/disadvantage mechanism relative to the base value of a straight d20 roll. For future reference, I’ll call this Table 2:

Target	d20	With Advantage	With Disadvantage
1	100%	+0%	-0%
2	95%	+4.75%	-4.75%
3	90%	+9%	-9%
4	85%	+12.75%	-12.75%
5	80%	+16%	-16%
6	75%	+18.75%	-18.75%
7	70%	+21%	-21%
8	65%	+22.75%	-22.75%
9	60%	+24%	-24%
10	55%	+24.75%	-24.75%
11	50%	+25%	-25%
12	45%	+24.75%	-24.75%
13	40%	+24%	-24%
14	35%	+22.75%	-22.75%
15	30%	+21%	-21%
16	25%	+18.75%	-18.75%
17	20%	+16%	-16%
18	15%	+12.75%	-12.75%
19	10%	+9%	-9%
20	5%	+4.75%	-4.75%
21	0%	+0%	-0%

Now, that’s a very interesting pattern. For targets of 9-13 there is very little difference – if you were to plot these on a graph, that range would be almost flat. 7 & 8 are also almost identical, as are 14 & 15, and the same can be said for 5 & 6 and 16 & 17. But we’re still not quite in a position to really look at what these results mean.

Bonuses & Targets

When you’re talking Advantage and Disadvantage, you’re generally talking about attack rolls. The target value – which is indexed to the results shown above – is the difference between the AC of the target and the combat bonuses or penalties of the attacker.

The example that the online GM mentions by way of proving that those bonuses are still around and part of the game system is prone, but really there are few other mechanisms for the implementation of magic weapons and the like. What’s more, an appropriate stat still contributes a bonus as well.

Most ACs in the game will fall in a range between 1 and 25. Let’s carry the results up to 30 to be on the safe side. Most often, bonuses will be zero-plus-stat bonus – when you’re talking PCs that’s anywhere from +1 to +5. Throw in the potential for a -2 (prone) and up to a +5 (magic) and possible bonuses totals run from -2 to +10. When you put all of these into a table of target numbers, we get:

Table 3: Target Numbers	Bonus
AC	-2	-1	+0	+1	+2	+3	+4	+5	+6	+7	+8	+9	+10
1	3	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
2	4	3	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
3	5	4	3	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
4	6	5	4	3	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
5	7	6	5	4	3	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
6	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1	1	1	1	1	1
7	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1	1	1	1	1
8	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1	1	1	1
9	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1	1	1
10	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1	1
11	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1
12	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2
13	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3
14	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4
15	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5
16	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6
17	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7
18	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8
19	–	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9
20	–	–	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10
21	–	–	–	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11
22	–	–	–	–	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12
23	–	–	–	–	–	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13
24	–	–	–	–	–	–	20	19	18	17	16	15	14
25	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	20	19	18	17	16	15
26	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	20	19	18	17	16
27	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	20	19	18	17
28	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	20	19	18
29	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	20	19
30	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	20

Once again, a very interesting – if fairly familiar – pattern. This sort of table should be fairly well-known and obvious to every GM who’s been around for a while.

It’s only when you make the mental connection between the two tables that the real significance of the fairly obvious pattern makes itself clear. An increasing bonus creates an upward trend in benefits (as shown in table 2) from a combat advantage AND a similar trend in penalties from a combat disadvantage.

This all becomes clearer when the appropriate values are transplanted from table 2 into table 3 to give tables 4 and 5:

Table 4: With Advantage	Bonus
AC	-2	-1	+0	+1	+2	+3
1	+9%	+4.75%	+0	+0	+0	+0
2	+12.75%	+9%	+4.75%	+0	+0	+0
3	+16%	+12.75%	+9%	+4.75%	+0	+0
4	+18.75%	+16%	+12.75%	+9%	+4.75%	+0
5	+21%	+18.75%	+16%	+12.75%	+9%	+4.75%
6	+22.75%	+21%	+18.75%	+16%	+12.75%	+9%
7	+24%	+22.75%	+21%	+18.75%	+16%	+12.75%
8	+24.75%	+24%	+22.75%	+21%	+18.75%	+16%
9	+25%	+24.75%	+24%	+22.75%	+21%	+18.75%
10	+24.75%	+25%	+24.75%	+24%	+22.75%	+21%
11	+24%	+24.75%	+25%	+24.75%	+24%	+22.75%
12	+22.75%	+24%	+24.75%	+25%	+24.75%	+24%
13	+21%	+22.75%	+24%	+24.75%	+25%	+24.75%
14	+18.75%	+21%	+22.75%	+24%	+24.75%	+25%
15	+16%	+18.75%	+21%	+22.75%	+24%	+24.75%
16	+12.75%	+16%	+18.75%	+21%	+22.75%	+24%
17	+9%	+12.75%	+16%	+18.75%	+21%	+22.75%
18	+4.75%	+9%	+12.75%	+16%	+18.75%	+21%
19	–	+4.75%	+9%	+12.75%	+16%	+18.75%
20	–	–	+4.75%	+9%	+12.75%	+16%
21	–	–	–	+4.75%	+9%	+12.75%
22	–	–	–	–	+4.75%	+9%
23	–	–	–	–	–	+4.75%
24	–	–	–	–	–	–
25	–	–	–	–	–	–
26	–	–	–	–	–	–
27	–	–	–	–	–	–
28	–	–	–	–	–	–
29	–	–	–	–	–	–
30	–	–	–	–	–	–

 

Table 4: With Advantage (cont)	Bonus
AC	+4	+5	+6	+7	+8	+9	+10
1	+0	+0	+0	+0	+0	+0	+0
2	+0	+0	+0	+0	+0	+0	+0
3	+0	+0	+0	+0	+0	+0	+0
4	+0	+0	+0	+0	+0	+0	+0
5	+0	+0	+0	+0	+0	+0	+0
6	+4.75%	+0	+0	+0	+0	+0	+0
7	+9%	+4.75%	+0	+0	+0	+0	+0
8	+12.75%	+9%	+4.75%	+0	+0	+0	+0
9	+16%	+12.75%	+9%	+4.75%	+0	+0	+0
10	+18.75%	+16%	+12.75%	+9%	+4.75%	+0	+0
11	+21%	+18.75%	+16%	+12.75%	+9%	+4.75%	+0
12	+22.75%	+21%	+18.75%	+16%	+12.75%	+9%	+4.75%
13	+24%	+22.75%	+21%	+18.75%	+16%	+12.75%	+9%
14	+24.75%	+24%	+22.75%	+21%	+18.75%	+16%	+12.75%
15	+25%	+24.75%	+24%	+22.75%	+21%	+18.75%	+16%
16	+24.75%	+25%	+24.75%	+24%	+22.75%	+21%	+18.75%
17	+24%	+24.75%	+25%	+24.75%	+24%	+22.75%	+21%
18	+22.75%	+24%	+24.75%	+25%	+24.75%	+24%	+22.75%
19	+21%	+22.75%	+24%	+24.75%	+25%	+24.75%	+24%
20	+18.75%	+21%	+22.75%	+24%	+24.75%	+25%	+24.75%
21	+16%	+18.75%	+21%	+22.75%	+24%	+24.75%	+25%
22	+12.75%	+16%	+18.75%	+21%	+22.75%	+24%	+24.75%
23	+9%	+12.75%	+16%	+18.75%	+21%	+22.75%	+24%
24	+4.75%	+9%	+12.75%	+16%	+18.75%	+21%	+22.75%
25	–	+4.75%	+9%	+12.75%	+16%	+18.75%	+21%
26	–	–	+4.75%	+9%	+12.75%	+16%	+18.75%
27	–	–	–	+4.75%	+9%	+12.75%	+16%
28	–	–	–	–	+4.75%	+9%	+12.75%
29	–	–	–	–	–	+4.75%	+9%
30	–	–	–	–	–	–	+4.75%

 

Table 5: With Disadvantage	Bonus
AC	-2	-1	+0	+1	+2	+3
1	-9%	-4.75%	-0	-0	-0	-0
2	-12.75%	-9%	-4.75%	-0	-0	-0
3	-16%	-12.75%	-9%	-4.75%	-0	-0
4	-18.75%	-16%	-12.75%	-9%	-4.75%	-0
5	-21%	-18.75%	-16%	-12.75%	-9%	-4.75%
6	-22.75%	-21%	-18.75%	-16%	-12.75%	-9%
7	-24%	-22.75%	-21%	-18.75%	-16%	-12.75%
8	-24.75%	-24%	-22.75%	-21%	-18.75%	-16%
9	-25%	-24.75%	-24%	-22.75%	-21%	-18.75%
10	-24.75%	-25%	-24.75%	-24%	-22.75%	-21%
11	-24%	-24.75%	-25%	-24.75%	-24%	-22.75%
12	-22.75%	-24%	-24.75%	-25%	-24.75%	-24%
13	-21%	-22.75%	-24%	-24.75%	-25%	-24.75%
14	-18.75%	-21%	-22.75%	-24%	-24.75%	-25%
15	-16%	-18.75%	-21%	-22.75%	-24%	-24.75%
16	-12.75%	-16%	-18.75%	-21%	-22.75%	-24%
17	-9%	-12.75%	-16%	-18.75%	-21%	-22.75%
18	-4.75%	-9%	-12.75%	-16%	-18.75%	-21%
19	–	-4.75%	-9%	-12.75%	-16%	-18.75%
20	–	–	-4.75%	-9%	-12.75%	-16%
21	–	–	–	-4.75%	-9%	-12.75%
22	–	–	–	–	-4.75%	-9%
23	–	–	–	–	–	-4.75%
24	–	–	–	–	–	–
25	–	–	–	–	–	–
26	–	–	–	–	–	–
27	–	–	–	–	–	–
28	–	–	–	–	–	–
29	–	–	–	–	–	–
30	–	–	–	–	–	–

 

Table 5: With Disadvantage (cont)	Bonus
AC	+4	+5	+6	+7	+8	+9	+10
1	-0	-0	-0	-0	-0	-0	-0
2	-0	-0	-0	-0	-0	-0	-0
3	-0	-0	-0	-0	-0	-0	-0
4	-0	-0	-0	-0	-0	-0	-0
5	-0	-0	-0	-0	-0	-0	-0
6	-4.75%	-0	-0	-0	-0	-0	-0
7	-9%	-4.75%	-0	-0	-0	-0	-0
8	-12.75%	-9%	-4.75%	-0	-0	-0	-0
9	-16%	-12.75%	-9%	-4.75%	-0	-0	-0
10	-18.75%	-16%	-12.75%	-9%	-4.75%	-0	-0
11	-21%	-18.75%	-16%	-12.75%	-9%	-4.75%	-0
12	-22.75%	-21%	-18.75%	-16%	-12.75%	-9%	-4.75%
13	-24%	-22.75%	-21%	-18.75%	-16%	-12.75%	-9%
14	-24.75%	-24%	-22.75%	-21%	-18.75%	-16%	-12.75%
15	-25%	-24.75%	-24%	-22.75%	-21%	-18.75%	-16%
16	-24.75%	-25%	-24.75%	-24%	-22.75%	-21%	-18.75%
17	-24%	-24.75%	-25%	-24.75%	-24%	-22.75%	-21%
18	-22.75%	-24%	-24.75%	-25%	-24.75%	-24%	-22.75%
19	-21%	-22.75%	-24%	-24.75%	-25%	-24.75%	-24%
20	-18.75%	-21%	-22.75%	-24%	-24.75%	-25%	-24.75%
21	-16%	-18.75%	-21%	-22.75%	-24%	-24.75%	-25%
22	-12.75%	-16%	-18.75%	-21%	-22.75%	-24%	-24.75%
23	-9%	-12.75%	-16%	-18.75%	-21%	-22.75%	-24%
24	-4.75%	-9%	-12.75%	-16%	-18.75%	-21%	-22.75%
25	–	-4.75%	-9%	-12.75%	-16%	-18.75%	-21%
26	–	–	-4.75%	-9%	-12.75%	-16%	-18.75%
27	–	–	–	-4.75%	-9%	-12.75%	-16%
28	–	–	–	–	-4.75%	-9%	-12.75%
29	–	–	–	–	–	-4.75%	-9%
30	–	–	–	–	–	–	-4.75%

 

Some interpretation

Viewing the results in this way makes a number of implications clear.

• For any given combat bonus, there is an optimum AC which maximizes the benefits of Combat Advantage which is equal to 11 plus the bonus.
• That same optimum AC also maximizes the penalties that result from Combat Disadvantage.
• At ACs lower than the optimum, Combat Advantage makes a likely outcome (a success) even more likely.
• ACs lower than the optimum are divided into two bands: those that are 6 or more less than the optimum, where combat disadvantage has a relatively small effect, and those that are between that value and the optimum, where combat disadvantage is significant.
• At an AC greater than about 16 more than the total combat bonus, chances of success begin to decline rapidly despite combat advantage.
• At an AC greater than about 7 more than the total combat bonus, chances of success decline rapidly with combat disadvantage.
• The greater the combat bonuses, the less significant (in general) combat advantage is except for a small band of low ACs.
• The 50% success mark is at (approximately) target=11 (straight d20), target=15 (with advantage), and target=7 (with disadvantage).
• The 25% success mark is at (approximately) target=16 (straight d20), target=18 (with advantage), and target=11 (with disadvantage).
• These can be used by the GM to select opponents posing different standards of tactical challenge.
• The relative tactical importance of achieving advantage over your opponents is variable depending on your combat bonuses and the AC of the opponent.
• The relative tactical importance of denying an opponent advantage over you is variable depending on your AC and your opponent’s combat bonuses.
• The two will rarely be the same. The optimum tactics to employ in any given situation are hence highly variable.
• The higher your combat bonuses, the less important tactical advantage and disadvantage are. It follows that min-maxing a character construction will often be less effective than being average and using smart tactics.
• It also follows that the optimum target value for min-maxing is different in every encounter. Past a certain point, the player is expending a great deal of effort to replace part of one benefit with an increase in another. As a result, it is both more difficult and less rewarding to min-max a character.

Conclusions

For my money, that last point is the greatest possible justification for this mechanic. All the other benefits – a more complex set of tactical considerations, the ability of a smart GM to work the system to provide a greater challenge to the players, and so on – are simply icing on the cake. In fact, there will be circumstances in which it is better overall for a min-maxed character to make themselves secondary to the battle and permit a character with good but not perfectly-tweaked ability totals to assume a better tactical position.

This will be especially true if the DM makes the precision of his adjudications with respect to combat advantage and disadvantage proportionate to the attack bonus of the min-maxed PC while being a little more generous (either way) on the part of non-min-maxed characters.

Will this end min-maxing and an elitist approach to character construction? I doubt it. Will it make these things less of a concern to DMs? Quite probably.

And that’s a very good thing.

P.S.

Anyone interested in the subject might also like to read Advantage vs Flat Bonuses at Critical Hits.

For obvious reasons, I’ve been in a very introspective frame of mind in recent weeks. It occurred to me today that my life has now changed almost comp-letely from where I was ten years ago.

Ten years ago, my primary occupation was as a bookkeeper. I hadn’t worked for a few years, but was still searching hard for employment and writing the occasional DVD review. These days, I write for Campaign Mastery twice a week and work on my own gaming publications the rest of the time. I’m now considered disabled because of a degenerative back problem that limits how much I can work; ten years ago this problem was a recurring but undiagnosed problem growing progressively worse. It had not yet reached the point of being semi-crippling.

I was living in a unit in a different suburb. I walked to the shops every day or two to shop, and made relatively little use of my refrigerator. Having lived in that location for more than ten years, I knew the shopkeepers and had set routines in terms of shopping and consumption. My diet was relatively consistent, week-to-week.

I now live too far from the shops to casually walk to them – actually, it’s not much farther than I used to live, but my health is not as good as it was. I travel to the supermarket every six to eight weeks and spend up big, then get it home delivered – using the refrigerator and freezer extensively. I’m only now getting recognized by a few of the local shopkeepers, and I can’t say I know any of them by name yet. I eat very few of the same foods that I did back then – having grown tired of some, having others become unavailable or too expensive, and simply having different shops available to me. (I still go back to the old stores occasionally and am still remembered there).

The programmes that I watched on TV, the websites that I visited, even the computer games that I played, were all matters of habit. I don’t remember the Tv shows that dominated my viewing landscape, but at the time there were only six channels available. These days, there are 16 (not counting redundant duplicates and home-shopping-only infomercial channels). While a couple of the shows that I watch regularly are repeats of classic TV, most of the programmes I watch regularly at the moment had not yet premiered. One of the few things to remain consistent to both periods is that I watch every Formula 1 Grand Prix. The websites that I visit regularly now are very different – for one thing, Twitter didn’t even exist ten years ago! I now get my TV guide and weather reports over the internet. Because of changes to computer technology – ten years ago I used Win98, and now I don’t – many of the games I used to play no longer function, sadly. Not that I have as much time in 2012 to spend on them.

My weekend activities also followed a fixed pattern. I played RPGs at a fixed time and place – a game store in a reasonably nearby suburb. I travelled to games according to a set routine – with Ian Mackinder once a month and with Stephen every other time. The games being played were fixed to a timetable – I played 7th Sea on the first Saturday of the month, GM’d my original Fumanor on the second Saturday, GM’d Warcry on the third Saturday, and GM’d the original Zenith-3 campaign on the fourth. On the fifth Saturday, on those months that had one, I would board game. About once a month, I would also run a campaign, “The Rings Of Time”, on a Sunday.

In modern times, about half of my gaming happens away from the suburban game store for various reasons. These were mostly held at Stephen’s place until his passing, and I expect that they will now take place at my home, simply because it is the most convenient location. I will usually be using public transport to get to gaming when it IS at Burwood, but will be able to get a lift home most weeks with Ian. While a fixed timetable is no longer essential, I still produce one every year. 7th Sea has moved to the second Saturday, and I am no longer in that campaign; the first Saturday of the month is now devoted to The Adventurer’s Club, the pulp campaign that I co-referee. At the same time as Seventh Sea, I usually run Fumanor, splitting the year between the two campaigns. Over the last few years, there have also been periodic Sunday sessions split between the Fumanor: One Faith and Warcry campaigns. The latter is necessary because the third Saturday has been given over to a new campaign, Shards Of Divinity. I still run the Zenith-3 campaign on the fourth Saturday of the month, and on any fifth Saturdays as well.

My reading matter has changed to some extent as well – I used to buy two formula-1 related magazines, one or two computer magazines, and a general motorsport magazine. These days, I only get one monthly F1 magazine. I still have all the books that I had back then, and still re-read them regularly; while I have added some additional ones to the list in the meantime, most of them are classics. Heck, half of the books in question were added to my collection back about 30 years ago. So that’s one area that hasn’t changed much.

The Character Analogue

These changes have occurred one piece at a time. Some of them have been gradual; others have been the result of monumental disruptions. This is normal, the product of simply being alive. Life is inherently a dynamic process.

Compare that with the state of existence of most characters in a roleplaying game. The default status of these characters is static and unchanging. This is something that I have talked about previously, in Time Happens in the background, part of my Lessons From The West Wing series.

In that article, I suggested tracking encounters with NPCs by campaign day number, and ensuring that the NPCs circumstances have changed by an appropriate amount according to the interval since the NPC had last been encountered. I also suggested using a building that is commonly seen as a visual calendar to reinforce the impression of the passage of time.

What I have realized in the last week is that this is not enough. No PC in ten years, game time, would be as unchanged by circumstances as we are in real life.

Muddying the confusion: Static Societies

When it comes to societies in RPGs, they are also quite frequently static except as the direct result of events in which the PCs are involved. To some extent, this is due to fidelity to genre; to some extent, it is due to preservation of game setting; to some extent, it is because our impression of feudal society is that it didn’t change all that much for long periods of time; and to some extent it’s because its a lot of work and GMs have better things to do with their prep time. These reasons all have a certain level of validity, but they aren’t enough to justify the lack of personal change in the life of a PC.

A more serious consideration is the fact that a PC belongs to a player, not to the GM, and therefore it should not be subjected to arbitrary change without that player’s consent.

Rather than simply throwing up our hands in defeat at this point, though, let’s simply take these two requirements – minimal GM prep time and player involvement – as parameters that my eventual solution will have to satisfy, and move on.

Muddying the confusion some more: The shortness of existence

What is the average life expectancy in a game? Not of PCs, but of the general population?

This is obviously something that is going to be extremely variable, dependant on lifestyle, diet, economic status, and a whole host of other factors. But most fantasy games are based on the feudal era of human history – so, to restate the question, what was the average life expectancy in that era? I’ve heard all sorts of numbers used in different games, and had a lot of trouble tracking down any historical statistics to use (mostly because the notion of compiling such was unheard-of until the Domesday Book of 1086. But, finally, I came across this Wikipedia page on the subject. And very interesting reading it makes, too, especially the numbers for Medieval Britain – 30 years, but if the individual survived to the age of 21, the forecast could be extended to 64 years of age. Since some people would obviously die at the age of 21, that essentially means that as many people died above the age of 64 as died below it, though we can’t say exactly what the distribution of numbers was – it is statistically just as likely from the information presented for them all to drop at 65 as it is for some to survive to the age of 80, or 90, or 100 – or 1000, for that matter.

What can be deduced from these numbers is an absolutely appalling child mortality rate – enough people under the age of 21 died to drop the overall average from 64 to 30. In fact, more than half of all children could not have survived to reach the age of 21. (In fact, I think it would work out to be 64/94ths of the population, or about 68%, but don’t hold me to that).

These numbers suggest that in any group of 100 people, roughly 3 would die in any given 2-year period. (100/64=1.5625). And two of those would be children.

Sure, the fantasy world has access to healing that this population didn’t have, but at the same time, there are many more ways to get killed in a fantasy world – so we can rather arbitrarily assume that these factors roughly balance out. Though there’s lots of room for a GM to weight the balance one way or the other, if he so desires.

Compare that to the modern age, with an average lifespan of 67.2 – and that’s including those areas of the world which have still not received the full benefits of modern medicine, nutrition, and so on. In the western world, the life expectancy average would be higher again. Assuming an even distribution of deaths at each age below this point, and using the results to exclude those who die at 21 or less, gives me a rough average of 97.7 years.

Both numbers suggest that we’ve added something like 32 years to the average lifespan.

Here’s the significance: in a world where people die younger, they will try to pack more into the time they’ve got. They can only go so far in that respect, of course, and that also brings in the question of opportunities for advancement socially and professionally. But it would not surprise me to find that the average age of marriage was reduced proportionately – by a ratio of 67.2/97.7, or about 69% of what we’re used to.

What’s the point?

The whole preceding question is about how quickly things will change. The conclusion is that any given change will take place after only about 70% of the time we’re used to. Middle age, and the respectability that comes with it, wouldn’t be age 30 – it would be age 21. Marriages wouldn’t take place at an average of 25 years of age, they would happen at about 17.5 (on average). A couple’s first child would arrive within a couple of years – say, around 19-20 years of age. Their second and third children would follow at intervals of about 18-24 months – by the time the couple were 25, four children would be typical – but there would be around a 10% chance that one of them would have died already (2 in 3 will die under 21, and the eldest is now around 6 years old; 100 x 2/3 x (6+4+2+0)/21 / 4 = 200 x 12 / 3 / 4 / 21 = 200/21 = 9.5%. By the time the couple is 30, their eldest would be around 11 (assuming he was still alive) and the father would be looking for a trade into which a boy could be apprenticed – even if it was simply “farm boy”. Certainly, the child would be expected to earn his keep soon, if not already. If a daughter, it would be time to start seriously thinking about accumulating a dowry.

Multiply this accelerated pace of life by the number of people a character knows, and there should be something happening every week. That something might be minor, or it might be major. And that’s without taking into account dramatic circumstances like Wars and Orcish invasions and the like.

Ending The Confusion

While society overall might not change very much, the individuals within it would be changing almost perpetually. Similarly, a PC’s family and neighbors would be in a constant state of flux.

What we need is a system for simulating that flux, one that also meets the other criteria that I’ve outlined.

That calls for a reasonably complex system that is nevertheless easy to use. My favorite tool for such systems: a deck of ordinary playing cards.

The List Of Events

During character generation, or when first implementing this system, the GM simply shuffles a deck of cards and hands them to a player. He then explains the rules: Red cards represent a positive event – a birth, a marriage, whatever. Black cards represent a negative event – an illness, robbery, imprisonment, death, and so on. The face value of the cards gives a rough guide to the severity. After every 2nd picture card, the deck must be reshuffled.

Then he simply tells the player to invent a list of events to match the cards he turns over. These should be described as succinctly as possible – who (generally) experiences the event, and what happens to them. “Brother falls ill.” “Father breaks leg”. “Friend imprisoned”. “Sister born”. “Father remarries.” “Honored by the Duke”.

These events should be listed on a sheet of A4 or foolscap paper with the PCs name at the top, and the name of the player.

The players should be encouraged to be as creative and soap-opera as possible in making out these lists, and not to fear repetition if they run out of ideas.

In The Meantime

While the players are working on their lists, the GM can create one for the neighbors and shopkeepers that the PCs encounter. This should be twice as long as those of any given player, because the GM will get more use out of it. Since this list will address multiple people, there is no need to be consistent – it’s quite possible for there to be multiple “father remarries” entries, for example. Otherwise, the same rules apply.

Sequencing events

Once everyone’s finished their events, the next step is to shuffle them in order so that the players don’t know exactly what is going to happen next, and can’t take advantage of it. The easiest way is to take the picture cards out (except for the aces) and shuffle the remaining cards.

• Spades = 1-10
• Clubs = 11-20
• Hearts = 21-30
• Diamonds = 31-40

With this chart, or some equally-simple list of suits, the GM should be able to write a number next to each background event almost as quickly as he can turn cards over. Once he has each list in sequence, the tables are ready for use – the GM should file them away until he needs them. Of course, if necessary, after dealing with the first 40 events, he can start again if necessary.

Employing the Domestic Events list

So, here’s how it works: Each time the PCs are in a position to interact or hear from a family member, the GM takes the next item in numeric sequence off the list for that PC. Using recent game world events as a guide, he puts it into a context, and simply describes a single paragraph of “news from home”. If a week passes without the PC being in position to receive such news, the GM jots his paragraph down on a sheet of paper, adding events each week (in order) until the PC is in a position to hear from home.

With each event, the GM has a three-fold choice:

1. he can interject an event of his own creation, leaving the next item on the list for a later time;
2. he can replace the subject of the event with the name of the PC, or the PCs spouse (if there is one), or append “-in-law” to the subject, as he sees fit;
3. or he can use it as it stands.

Each time he exercises options 2 or 3, he crosses the number off the list. So the event that the GM has numbered (randomly) #1 happens first, then #2, and so on.

Similarly, every time the PCs interact with a neighbor or a shopkeeper, the GM can select the most recent event that has affected them off the list that he has created.

When a list runs out, the player or GM simply generates a new list and files it away.

The goal is that in 10 years – about 520 events – the mundane life of the PC should have changed completely.

Just as it would have done in real life.

Non-fantasy gaming

A similar approach should work in every game. Some of the events might be different – there would be less emphasis on death and injury and more on career milestones and changes in a modern game – but the general principles will still hold.

Give it a try and see how much your PCs lives come to life!

Slow combats kill games. This hard truth frustrates you and I because, as GMs, we feel it’s our responsibility to facilitate fast, sleek and exciting sessions.

When combat grinds, you end up with fewer encounters in a session. Fewer encounters means less story told, less adventure and less fun.

Combat grind also saps your players’ energy. You put effort into bringing enthusiasm and excitement to the table. You employ techniques with pacing and encounter design to create even more focus and drama.

But then combat grind comes along and deflates the table like a farting balloon.

Slow combats kill games.

So what is a game master to do?

Table Rules To The Rescue

One of the biggest reasons your combats are slow is players. They dawdle. They’re indecisive. They don’t know the rules and need the same rule explained to them every time. They chatter and don’t pay attention. Some even pay more attention to their phones than the GM!

With Tony Medeiros of LeonineRoar.com, I have published the world’s first online course for game masters. It’s called Faster Combat and in 52 info-packed lessons we teach you step-by-step exactly how to cut your combat time in half.

And believe it or not, we show you how to also increase drama and roleplaying at the same time!

One of the lessons covers the 17 Table Rules for Speed, and that’s what I want to show you today. This post contains info directly from the course, with some additional commentary from me just for Campaign Mastery.

I’m going to cover 11 of the rules today. I’m hoping if you like this advice and use it to increase your combat speed, you’ll consider enrolling in the Faster Combat course for GMs.

What Are Table Rules?

Your game books cover the rules of play. They tell you how to resolve different actions. Even if you use a rules light system, your rules still provide a framework for figuring out who shot whom and whether hiding in a fridge during a nuclear blast was a success.

However, game systems rarely help you with the social aspects of play. Things like slow players or disrespectful players.

Social etiquette, respect and procedure greases the wheels of smooth GMing and great game sessions.

A table rule is a simple group agreement about how to handle problem situations that often arise during games.

There are no villains here – you all play to have fun. But the problem comes when people with different backgrounds, experiences and expectations impose their style onto others without checking first.

If I told you your dice was cocked and your natural 20 was disallowed, you’d be very mad at me, especially if the issue of cocked dice had never been discussed before.

Johnn: I’ve always GM’d that cocked dice don’t count.

Bob: Well, in my previous group we allowed them!

Sarah: WE always used to re-roll cocked dice, but only if it was really cocked.

Johnn: What do you mean by really cocked? Like, 15 degrees or more?

Sarah: Yeah, like that.

Johnn: Ok, let me get my protractor and get a measurement.

Bob: Screw this, my roll counts!!! @#@$#!

You can avoid these nasty situations and speed your combats up a lot with some simple table rules.

Below, I offer several examples of great table rules for speeding up your battles.

How Do You Create A Table Rule?

But first, let’s quickly discuss how you create and handle table rules.

Again, your game books probably say either the GM has final say, or that the rules are suggestions only and your group should change them as they see fit.

In neither case do you get any help on what to actually do about keeping everybody in the loop and happy with rule changes and additions.

So here is what you do.

Step 1: Make a list of table rules you want to implement that’ll speed up combat.

Step 2: Take 15 minutes at the start of next game session to talk over each rule.

Step 3: Go through each rule one by one and explain WHY you want this rule. The why is critical for player acceptance. If they understand the purpose of the rule and its benefits, they will comply much better during sessions.

The best way to explain why is to state the proposed rule and then add “because”. The word because is a clear and clean segue for you to explain your reasoning.

“Dice rolled on the floor do not count…because nobody can see what you rolled and it’s not fair to introduce that ambiguity. Plus, I want you to immediately roll a new dice and look for the dropped dice after your turn…because that will speed up the game, especially for those hard-to-find dice.”

Step 4: Have a brief discussion, consider amendments and change any rules accordingly.

Step 5: Next session, give all players a copy of the group’s new Table Rules For Speed. Be consistent and fair in their application.

Step 6: At the start of each session for the next few sessions, ask if there is any feedback on the table rules. Have a discussion, make amendments, distribute revised rules accordingly.

Step 6 should only be for two, three or four sessions until each rule has been tested, contested and rested. From then on, it will be smooth sailing.

Occasional hiccups will happen. In these cases, go back to the steps above, which are all about clear communication, group collaboration and fairness.

Ok, let’s dive into my suggestions for some Table Rules For Speed!

Top 17 Table Rules For Speed (Expanded)

Here are the very best table rules to help manage your game table and increase turn speed.

These table rules are designed for fairness and to help you run faster combats so you can chew through more exciting encounters every session.

Table Rule 1. Speak Up: Ask

Simply ask your players to take their turns faster.

Tell them things appear to be grinding to a crawl and the pace of combat needs to increase so there’s less waiting around the game table.

Tell your playgroup you’ll regularly ask players to pick up the pace throughout a given session or campaign.

This is the most important part of the table rule. You are getting player permission to call them out periodically when they drag the pace down. Without this table rule and their permission, you come off looking like a jerk.

But because this issue has been discussed, when you do ask a player to hurry up, the groundwork has already been laid that this type of GM callout is acceptable and is for the good of the whole group.

This table rule also communicates it’s not personal. All players will be subject to this callout, which makes any potential sting painless when it happens.

If you can, try a friendly approach. “Bob, I’m invoking Table Rule #1. Please finish up your turn quick here so I can move on to Frank.”

If you do this, soon you’ll be able to snap out, “Table Rule #1” and get a smile – and a faster player – instead of a stressed or hurt player.

It just becomes part of your group’s social standards, no harm or foul.

Table Rule 2. No Take Backs

Use the classic chess or board game piece rule: once you’ve declared an action or moved your miniature, there’s no taking it back.

Use this if your group has indecisive or highly tactical players.

Some players are tricky. They’ll announce an action and wait to see your reaction. If they think you’re about to lay down some smack, they’ll quickly recant and think some more.

You give away the consequences with your energy, facial expression and body language. You might even give yourself up with how you speak: “Awesome, well then, your foe….” Speak like that and a player realizes they’ve made a mistake and will do a take-back.

This table rule should include a GM protocol to help it along. You don’t need to discuss this, it’s just something you do. When a player declares their action, you confirm, then declare it final, then react.

How you word this is up to you, but one suggestion is:

Sarah: I charge forward, sword swinging above my head, giving my fierce battle cry!

Johnn: Haha, that’s a great description. So you charge forward? (? Your smooth confirmation, before reacting)

Sarah: Yes.

Johnn: (now you react ?) Great! To your horror, the floor drops beneath your feet. As you attempt to avoid the trap, you catch the glint of massive spiked cylinders churning below in a pool of vile blood and gore. [Make a Reflex save.]

Table Rule 3. Reroll Dice That Fall Off The Table

Flying dice cost time. And the odd thing is, good rolls on the floor tend to count, but bad rolls must be re-rolled because “my dice rolled off the table.”

Establish a clear rule on what to do when this happens and apply this table rule every time, regardless of what the dropped dice rolled.

One option is the player (or GM) must re-roll a new dice immediately. This saves the quest-for-dice delay, and it removes any temptation to ask for an appeal when the dropped dice result is spotted.

Another option is to not allow re-rolls for players with bad aim. Have those rolls count as a 1. That’ll quickly make everyone a lot more careful with their dice. This is especially good for players who are a little careless or who aren’t paying enough attention to the game.

You might also consider using a communal dice tray. A game box lid does just fine. All player dice must be rolled into the tray. Put the tray where you can easily see it.

Players should remove their dice from the tray once finished their turn so other player’s rolls do not accidentally touch another player’s dice and get “contaminated.” (You would not believe the dice arguments I’ve had with players, but as with any form of luck, superstition and habit sets in.)

A nice benefit of a tray is minimal cocked dice. No lie: a former group ruled a 15 degree angle or gap or more constituted a cocked dice. I brought a protractor to sessions. This only lasted a couple of sessions though, because it was so silly, but the protractor became a symbol.

Table Rule 4. No Cross Talk or Interruptions

Ask players to not interrupt or disrupt other players during their turns. It’s just the player and GM, focused on each other, working out that player’s turn.

I recommend you do not allow in-character talk with the active player, either.

Instead, for maximum turn efficiency, allow players to roleplay with each other when inactive as much as they like as long as they do not get too loud. This lets players plan and chat and entertain with each other without costing game time.

I know this breaks your game’s round length – how could so much conversation happen in those 6 or 10 or 30 seconds? – but it’s a nice compromise.

If you don’t like this, then consider allowing only in-character talk (no meta-gaming, please) with the active player. And just allow brief phrases, replies or an exchange of one sentence during the short period a combat turn represents.

The biggest time drag comes from indecisiveness. Some people cannot make snappy decisions. And if you allow other players to talk with the active player and introduce new ideas and choices, you just make indecisive players take even longer on their turns (which is stressful for the player too).

Not allowing cross-talk also prevents meta-gaming. Players cannot share info the active character would not know during his player’s turn. (It will happen out of turn anyway, but things always get “real” when the spotlight is on you, and minimizing meta-gaming this way helps roleplay and drama.)

The opposite of indecision is over-analysis. Does your group discuss and analyze every option on each character’s move? Holy cow, that’s a big peeve of mine and it takes up a lot of game time.

Finally, interruptions break concentration and steals the spotlight away from the active player. Not only does this slow combat down, but you rob characters of their shining moments.

You also rob roleplaying, because if you honour spotlight time and make it safe, players will roleplay PC actions and abilities more often.

Table Rule 5. Use Clear Language

Require that everyone declares targets, distances, hit rolls and damage totals clearly.

Make sure players point to miniatures or make sure every miniature is labeled so players and GMs can easily call them out throughout a combat.

Add up damage done to a target and say a single number out loud whenever possible.

The spirit of this rule is to avoid ambiguity. The time it takes to go back and forth cause combat turns to slog down.

Bob: I hit the lizardman for 10.

Johnn: Great, the lizardman….

Bob: No, wait! I do 8 with the sword, 2 for strength, 1 for the bless and 1 more for power attack. Ok, I do 12.

Johnn: You sure?

Bob: Yup.

Johnn: Great, the lizardman reels back but takes the damage like a true warrior. He hisses and you think he’s actually laughing at you!

Bob: Wait, what? No. I hit the already-wounded guy. Does he die?

Johnn: Oh, sorry, I thought you were attacking the guy in front of you.

And on and on it can go. Plus, in the example above it blew my great combat description and my little GMing moment of flavour. Boo.

One solution is to confirm everything. But that’s tedious too.

Instead, if players can help you by being crystal clear on all the facts involved in their action, you don’t need to confirm, you avoid the lengthy back and forth and demoralizing errors, and combats go by much faster.

Note: you can help players help you by giving them your full attention. Do not reward players honoring Table Rule #5 with a request for them to repeat themselves because you were only half listening.

Table Rule 6. Snack After Combat

No snacking during turns.

Encourage everyone to eat meals before the session so players have their full attention on the session and combats, rather than their food.

Members of my group take turns supplying dinner at the start of sessions. That way we eat together and the meal is taken care of, plus we fit in some great social time and session readiness time.

If you allow snacks at the table (which most of us do) then ask players not to eat on their turn. This makes turns go a little faster, and it keeps the game area cleaner. It’s also easier to not talk with your mouth full. :)

Table Rule 7. Make Passive Checks

Don’t slow down combat with yet more rolls.

Use passive checks or just assume success for certain situations, especially at higher levels of play.

Many games already include automatic checks like this (i.e., “Take 10”).

Ask yourself whether chance of failure adds any value to a particular situation. Does it add drama, chance of a great story result or twist, or fun because of chance of failure.

If the roll would add little to gameplay, hand wave it instead for the sake of brevity.

Doing this actually enhances story and roleplaying because you can dive seamlessly into great narrative or description, adding flavor, without the stilted effect of dice rolls and result calculations.

You can also ask players to provide great descriptions for automatic checks.

Johnn: Frank, no need to roll your climb because it’s just a 3 foot leap. You succeed. Instead, describe what happens.

Frank: With clanking armor and jingling weapons, Krog gingerly steps over the lava stream. He grunts from the heat and almost trips as his visor accidently closes, but he makes it across and keeps running towards his foe!

Table Rule 8. Seating = Init

Once initiative is set, have everyone sit in initiative order as a visual aid to track initiative.

Then play proceeds clockwise around the table with less time wondering whose turn it is.

This works when initiative is fairly static. If you play a game where init changes each round, I could make a case for switching to average init, and not just to speed up combat, but to make combat more strategic as well.

For example, as mentioned in Module 3 of Faster Combat, “an average initiative result approach yields a consistency of more realistic and immersive role-based quickness through an entire campaign’s worth of combats. Monstrous insects tend to always act faster than slow-moving giants, for example.”

However, I know init is very much a GM and group style choice, so there is no one perfect solution. My Pathfinder group rolls once at the beginning of combat, and we use a lot of readied and delayed actions, so seating in init order would end up being musical chairs.

But think how easy initiative management would become if each player knew it was his turn once the guy on his right is done, or that his turn is coming up soon because Bob seated over there is taking his turn now.

Visual, intuitive and fast.

Table Rule 9. Stand Up

Ask everyone to stand during combat.

Standing increases energy and attention levels. And in the case of combat, it increases focus.

Another perk: it makes players a little uncomfortable and motivates them to finish combat faster.

Sitting for too long – especially without good breathing practices – makes you tired. Standing up gets the blood flowing again.

Standing for combat also subtly implies action.

Table Rule 10. No Dice Massaging

Ban dice massaging from your game table.

A second or two is okay, but approaching five+ seconds every time someone rolls dice is an annoying time waster.

Do you have a player who must fondle his dice before every roll? I had one. We got into arguments over it. The superstitious ritual just kept getting longer and more involved.

It got even worse when the player ran into a bad luck streak. Suddenly the massages turned into performance art. Great for festivals, bad for fast combats.

Here’s where you can help me. Dice massaging is creepy, but fancy dice rolling moves are cool! Do you know of any sites or videos that show you cool ways to roll dice (fast). I thought magic trick sites might have some interesting flourishes, but um, no dice. So the quest continues.

Table Rule 11. Announce End Of Turn

When your turn ends, announce it clearly and audibly.

A simple “Done,” works. A “Done, Dave is next,” is even better.

And the platinum version? “Done, Dave’s next and Andrea – you’re on deck.”

This table rule speeds up combat in two great ways.

First, it makes it crystal clear when the next player’s turn activates.

Ever had those moments where nobody knows whose turn it is and the game simmers for awhile? You are busy checking up something behind the screen, so you don’t catch that the next player is oblivious it’s their turn.

Crisp hand-offs improve round speed and leave no guesswork about who should be declaring their action right this moment. It also prevents players from spacing out.

Think of it like a baton race. The fastest team depends on excellent hand-offs.

The second reason this table rule is so effective? When a player announces his turn is done, that’s it.

Similar to no take-backs, if something was forgotten that was potentially beneficial, it’s lost: do it on your next turn.

You stave off arguments, time-consuming retcons and re-calculations.

You also prevent the next player’s turn getting interrupted halfway through, which is a bit rude and flusters some players. Plus, sometimes the interruption forces a player to rethink their turn and start all over again. Killer.

This table rule encourages everyone to pay attention on their turn and make good decisions fast.

Bonus Tip

Print out your Table Rules For Speed and put them on the back of your GM screen. Just like B.A.’s screen in Knights of the Dinner Table, the table rules are public and there for all to reference all the time.

If you do not use a screen, post your table rules up on the wall, or get them laminated and put them on the table each session.

Summary

Done right, the Table Rules For Speed you assemble become part of your group’s culture. The silent message they deliver each session includes respect for each other, and to speed gameplay up so everyone can enjoy more encounters and story every game night.

You all have more fun because the group’s table rules grease wheels that might otherwise get jammed up from bad practices, poor communication and a weak gaming spirit.

Go through the list of table rules above. Select the ones you think would benefit your group best.

Add new ones as you sit fit (and please share them with us – I’d like to hear what yours are).

Have a group discussion. And then begin your faster combats. Roll initiative!

The death of a player naturally forces a GM to reassess his campaign and plans. But this sort of tragic event is not the only reason why this might become necessary – a player might move away, or might simply tire of the campaign and want to play something else, or might even give up roleplaying altogether – because they are getting married or have joined the army or something. I’ve seen all of these happen in the past (including the two reasons for retiring from RPGs), and with the passing of Stephen (see Remembering Stephen Tunnicliff), I’ve been forced into just such a reappraisal. I thought, therefore, that some reflection on the processes involved might be of value to our readers.

Campaign Viability

The first issue that must be considered is whether or not the campaign is even viable without the player. Was the player so central to the campaign that it is better to simply close it down? Are there still enough players to maintain the style and genre? There is no one answer to this, it will vary with number of players remaining and from campaign to campaign.

In many ways, losing a player is like losing a cast member from a successful TV show. There are times when the programme doesn’t even break stride (Dick Sergeant/ Dick York in Bewitched comes to mind), times when the programme collapses completely (can you imagine Happy Days without the Fonz?) – and there may even be rare occasions when the change is for the better (though I can’t actually think of an example off the top of my head).

Campaign Vitality

A second, related assessment asks the same questions concerning the PC that belonged to the departed player. Was the Character so central to the campaign that it cannot be salvaged without that character? Are there still enough PCs to maintain style and genre? Each player brings something unique to a campaign, usually expressed through the way they run their character – can that be replaced? Can some other player step into the role, or can the role be written out completely and replaced with someone else?

Once again, every campaign will be different in this respect.

Character Options: Immortalize, Commemorate, Retire, Replace, Discard

If the decision is made to remove or replace the missing player’s character, the next question is what to do with that character. Especially in cases such as the one in which I find myself, there is a strong desire to create some form of lasting memorial to the player through the character, immortalizing them as a permanent fixture within the campaign.

A less extreme approach is to give the character a grand exit that will commemorate their role within the campaign, though that usually works better with advance planning.

More prosaic still is to simply retire the character – have him hang up his spurs and exit, stage left, or ride off into the sunset.

If the character is too central to the campaign, there are two alternatives, both of which come under the general heading of “replace” – you can either keep the character, giving it to a new player, or you can bring in a new player with a new character to fulfill the same role. I’ve employed both approaches in the past – Blackwing, in the Zenith-3 campaign, is currently on his third player; and when Nick (one of my players) dropped out of the Fumanor campaign briefly, a new character stepped into the breach.

Finally, there is the option of simply killing the character off and letting the campaign progress as it will.

Ideally, the decision should be made in advance, after consulting the player, and with their cooperation. Where the departure is sudden, however, this is a choice not available to the GM, and he will have to make the best choice that he can on his own – perhaps after discussing the matter with the other players.

My Campaigns

So, with the preamble out of the way, it’s time to get down to cases – considering my campaigns, both active and inactive. I’ll start with my D&D campaigns and work my way through to the others.

The Rings Of Time

This D&D 3.x campaign was already shut down due to a shortage of time – prep time somewhat, and play time in particular. In this case, Stephen was 2/4ths of the central plotline and one of the two players. His involvement was absolutely central to the campaign, and for this reason, it will never now be restarted.

The Tree Of Life

When I first approached the notion of playtesting D&DNext, I wanted to do with the playtest exactly what I would do if I were really using the game system – building an ongoing campaign from it. This is the campaign that I came up with. With the game system now moving on to a new phase of playtesting, this campaign was shut down because it would have been incompatible with what WOTC wanted the playtesters to do. The plan was always to restart the campaign when it became appropriate to do so, but Stephen was going to be integral to that, so I am no longer sure about doing so. Ultimately, it probably depends on whether or not a new player can step into his shoes.

Fumanor: The Seeds Of Empire

Since Stephen was not a player in this campaign, there is no decision needed.

Fumanor: One Faith

This campaign started out as a solo campaign for one player, but added a couple more as it progressed, one of whom was Stephen. The future plans for this campaign called for it to bifurcate, half the plotlines following the original central character and the other half revolving around Stephen’s Bard. The other new PC was intended to share in Stephen’s adventures. Quite obviously, I have two options: I can maintain the campaign plan as it is, or I can scrap it and integrate the other players into the primary strand in a more traditional structure.

For quite a while, i was in two minds about which course to choose. Ultimately, three considerations came together to settle the question definitively. The first was the realization that the Bardic strand of the campaign would not work without Stephen’s Bard; the second, that the other new PC, on his own, was better suited to the non-Bardic strand; and the third, that if I had the Bardic Strand happen in the campaign background and increased the significance of events therein, I could immortalize Stephen’s Bard as a key element of either the big finish of this campaign, or as a central element of the next.

It means a minor revision of the campaign plan, and the scrapping of about half the adventures planned, but it is by far the best answer for both this campaign and for the desire to immortalize the contributions my friend had made to my games.

Shards Of Divinity

We had a new player join the original Fumanor campaign about 2/3 of the way through, but Shannon was a relative novice when it came to campaigns of the intricacy and complexity of the games I run. He found himself out his depth and dropped out after a little less than a year. Part of the problem, he felt, was that he had not been part of the campaign from the start, and was always trying breathlessly to catch up with the other players. So he asked me to come up with a new campaign for him to learn in. The result was the Shards Of Divinity campaign.

Stephen’s character was a member of the supporting cast, one who was about to come into his own as the campaign moves into a political phase. Without him, the tasks facing the PCs in fulfilling their ambitions will be more difficult, but Stephen was not central to this campaign. It’s my thinking at this point that I will simply give his character a new Contract to fulfill (he’s a thief who has recently turned Assassin) and quietly write Stephen’s character out of the campaign.

Fumanor: The Ultimate Chaos (working title)

It came as no surprise to my players when I started compiling ideas for the Next Fumanor campaign shortly after play got underway in the current campaigns. The plan was for each of the three Fumanor campaigns to contribute an epic-level character for a big finish to the entire campaign set. From the original campaign, Ian Gray would reprise Aurella, the greatest mage of the known world; from the Seeds Of Empire campaign, Nick would contribute Tajik, his Orcish Cleric; and from the One Faith campaign, Stephen would contribute his Bard.

Those plans have obviously been knocked in a heap by Stephen’s passing, but using the revised plans evolved for dealing with his loss in the One Faith campaign permits the original idea to be perpetuated, at least in spirit. We may well need a third player to join the campaign, though; fortunately, we have one who believes he is ready to step up into the “Big Leagues” in Shannon, after two years or more of the Shards Of Divinity campaign.

The Warcry Campaign

This started out as a solo campaign for one player, and although Stephen and one other player subsequently joined it, they were always peripheral to the overall campaign. So this campaign will continue without Stephen. The question then becomes, what to do with his character? At the moment, they are in the middle of the multipart epic “Daughters Of Darion” plot arc, in which the titular PC has to locate husbands for his daughters, and interrupting that will be quite difficult and badly disrupt the overall narrative of the campaign. At the same time, that plot arc has more than 2 years left to run, and Stephen’s character would be a complex and difficult-to-handle NPC.

If the campaign is going to be damaged, regardless, the next goal must be to minimize that damage. The best answer is to impose a short, sharp shock – get it over and done with as quickly as possible and then get the campaign back on track. That, to me, suggests an intermission in the middle of the plot arc – and right now, when they happen to be in between adventures, is the best time for such an interruption.

Having made that decision, I then have to think about an adventure that will lead to Stephen’s character retiring or dying or something suitably dramatic. It was always intended that the campaign would eventually travel to Stephen’s Character’s Homeworld and confront his arch-enemy there. If I write the character out of the campaign, that plotline will never be needed – and there’s been a lot of work put into that plotline. I always intended to slot it in somewhere – it doesn’t appear in the campaign plan that I outlined in my discussion of adventure names – so why not here?

With a few tweaks, it would give Stephen’s character an epic send-off, writing him out of the campaign. The only difference would be to ramp it up and give the character a predetermined pyrrhic victory instead of letting the character find a solution that enabled him to continue in the campaign.

Zenith-3: The Regency Campaign

Stephen was not a player in this campaign, but his past characters remain an indelible part of its history. More than any other campaigns of mine, this one bears his imprint. His characters, especially Behemoth, will remain a lasting legacy.

The Adventurers’ Club

This campaign has a much more ensemble feel to it. Stephen was one player out of 4, so it should be possible for it to continue. Nevertheless, it is now at the limit of viability, in my opinion – I’m only one half of the refereeing on the campaign – losses for various reasons (it started with 8 players, of whom I was one) are now seriously threatening that ensemble tone. It’s almost at the point where players and co-GMs might want to discuss the possibility of players taking on a second character, or of bringing in one or two new recruits.

None of these decisions is entirely up to me, since I only co-referee the campaign. They will need to be discussed with my co-GM before a final decision is reached.

In terms of characters, Stephen’s character is central to both the current adventure and to the next one that we have planned. I think that we can probably rewrite the next one to focus on a different PC, probably Saxon’s priest; Ian Mackinder’s Sea Captain would be a more logical focus, but he is already the central focus of the B-story. The difficulty we will face is that Ian is not a very strong detective when playing games; he may love the detective genre, especially Sherlock Holmes, but that is not his strong suite and never has been. In that B-plot, he would very much have been relying on Saxon and Nick’s contributions in that area; now he will have to rely on Nick alone. Will they be up to the challenge? We may have to resort to some NPC assistance or even to being a little more generous in interpreting situations and feeding the players clues.

That leaves the current adventure, which really is all about Stephen’s Character. I had come up with the plotline and Blair and I had rejected it as being just too evil – but then Stephen asked us to come up with a plotline in which his character gained a Noble Title, and since that was at the heart of the plotline I had devised, we basically said to each other, “He’s asked for it.” The question to be asked is whether or not we play out the adventure, or simply tell the players what the outcome of it was and move on to the next adventure – which is not yet completely written and ready for play. My feeling is that we should continue, and tweak the ending so that the character gets to retire with his title intact. Another of our mutual friends and ex-players, Michael Price, is perhaps the most capable of emulating Stephen’s sensibilities, and the possibility of asking him to fill in for the rest of the current adventure is also something Blair and I need to discuss.

The washup

The old show-business maxim is “The Show Must Go On”. A roleplaying game is not the same thing; there is no reason why you can’t shut one down following the loss of a central player and start a new one in its place. But, at the same time, there is a natural desire to respect the investments in time and effort that have been made by the other players (not to mention yourself) and an inclination to immortalize or commemorate the PC whose player is no longer at the table.

There are times when the right thing to do, and the best thing to do in terms of the campaign, is to give in to those inclinations. But there are also times when the best thing to do is to write the character out, either with a bang or with a very quiet whimper.

All too often, GMs only have one solution in their dicebox to deal with the sort of eventualities listed at the start of this article. Hopefully, this has expanded the repertoire of tools available for coping with this particular problem. If you need assistance in replacing the player, of course, you can consult our ebook, ‘Filling The Empty Chair’.

This article has now been translated into French by our friends at PtgPtb!

An empty Death is a terrible thing

When Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby) died in Star Trek: The Next Generation, there was an outcry amongst fans. Not because the character had been killed off so much as because she died what was later described even within the series as “an empty death” – a death without meaning, carried out purely to demonstrate how evil and powerful the enemy that week – a pool of black goo – was.

We expect our heroes to survive, or to die a heroic death. Either is usually an acceptable option.

Wandering through the Wilderness

That means that wandering monsters and random encounters should never put a PC at risk. This imposes a tricky burden on the GM, because without the potential threat, such encounters are empty and meaningless – and boring.

The solution to this conundrum is to make sure that such random encounters are always plot-significant in some way. That in turn means that any danger they pose is entirely warranted, and the GM can institute such threats with a clear conscience.

Snippets of information

This changes the problem from a difficult one to something that is easily manageable with a bit of pre-planning. The question now becomes how to impart significance to random encounters.

Well, there are two types of encounter – those that will be trivial because they pose no threat to the PCs, and those that will not be trivial. There’s no need to impart significance to the first, which leaves only the second; and those are almost always encounters with sentient creatures. Which offers a solution – by using them to solve a second problem.

GMs always have a lot of information to impart to the players. Information overload is something that is all too easy to incur. By using these random encounters as a conduit for nuggets and snippets of such information, the encounter becomes one of significance.

Relative Value

That is not the end of the story, of course. It makes no sense for high-value information to come from a low-value encounter; for the information to be valued by the PCs it must carry a risk proportionate to its value.

The solution is to break the information to be imparted to the PCs down into individual chunks. Keep a list, sorted or rated by importance. When an encounter takes place, select the appropriate piece of information from the list. Give minimal or even misleading context. Treat them like rumors – because that’s exactly what they are.

A Side-benefit

There’s a side-benefit to this approach. High-level players who over-rely on Teleport for hit-and-run dungeon crawls will suddenly find that they are leaping into a situation blind, and having to work twice as hard, simply because they are bypassing all the informative nuggets that the GM has prepared. The GM can give his bad guys any enhancement they need with a clear conscience – complete immunity to whatever they are normally vulnerable to, for example, or the fact that they have allies. In fact, whatever is necessary to make them suitably difficult for the PCs to overcome – simply because they have chosen to ignore the hints and clues and advance warning that the GM has provided for them.

The surrogacy alternative

Another approach is to ensure that fatalities in meaningless encounters are experienced by NPCs – surrogates. Redshirts, if you will. While most GMs dislike the practice to some extent, because it drastically increases the workload during play, most PCs like to surround themselves with NPCs. If they are going to do that anyway, why not take advantage of the fact?

An Empty Life is a terrible thing

Originally, this is where this article was going to end. But then I received an email from one of my former players, someone that I had contacted regarding the death of my friend and player, Stephen, about whom I wrote on Monday. In the process of catching up with each other, he related the following story (slightly edited):

I’ve only been involved with one gaming group here in the US, ran by my ex-wife’s brother – it was not bad, fairly interesting, but he had a REAL problem with ‘player death’ in that it never happened… even if you WANTED it to happen – which really conflicted with the style he was trying to run for his world. He was shooting for something that felt like epic myth, but failed to take into account that in all the great epics, the hero’s death is a major point. Without typing up 10 pages of backstory, I’ll try to summarize what happened, and actually annoyed me to the point of leaving the group a short time later.

As with most big epic stories, our main enemy was a Loki type demigod – you know, bastard half-son trickster, red-headed stepchild type that was just a malevolent PITA for us constantly… especially moi, who would take every opportunity to snub, insult, and generally just mess with him.

We came to a big story point in this game where we were holding back a horde of beasties from the gates of the major city – undermanned and outnumbered, you get the deal – so the big bad guy decides to personally turn up. At this point I was saying to myself ‘enough is enough’. We broke for dinner at this point as a cliffhanger and I quietly plotted something that would probably end the entire conflict, possibly foul up this demigod really nasty, but will 100% kill my character. I figured ‘epic hero setting, this will be awesome, I get to die the huge epic hero death!’

In a previous ‘solo hero quest’, my character (an exceptional archer) had been given a bow with a bunch of fairly nice arrows and some nifty properties. One was an arrow that does no damage when it hits a target but which permits the next arrow I fire from anywhere to hit that target. I had already abused this on one occasion to blackmail a King – shot him in the neck and left it at that (the DM was “Hmmm I didn’t think of THAT!”).

Another was an arrow that just sent someone ‘home’ – their home and hearth. Pretty useless, you might think. And finally, the bow: if I cut my palm on the bowstring prior to firing, whatever I shot lost hit points if they tried to advance on me past the point where they were when it hit them – but I would also lose 1/4 of the HP inflicted on the target.

If you’re thinking ahead you can see where this is leading. This demigod turns up at the gates and summons more beasties to reinforce the attacking hoards. I shout out to him, so he can see me good and proper as I aim, hit him with the ‘mark’ arrow right on his left shoulder. He laughs and gives his ‘puny mortal’ speech. Off goes a second arrow, which hits him in the forehead; it bounces off and I just say ‘home!’, sending him back to the underworld he crawled out from. The DM is scratching his head at this point, right up until the next round when I say ‘Okay, I’m cutting my palm on the bowstring’.

The whole table went silent. It was priceless. The DM asked me roll – and I get a critical success! …and I just casually ask ‘So, how far away IS the underworld… in meters?’

The point being that I had set up the villain. He would HAVE to travel back to make an example of one who had DARED not only to touch him, but had shot him three times. That sort of affront you can’t leave rest! He’d travel back, sustaining damage the whole way. He would be so damaged that at he’d probably be banished to underworld to lick his wounds, and either way an entire city of defenders would see him all jacked up by a mortal. Of course I’d already be dead when he arrived; I’d be in the negative millions of hit points, there was no coming back from this, and I knew exactly what I was doing…. Epic Hero, Epic Death.

It didn’t happen that way. In ‘the nick of time’ all the battle clerics joined hands and did some heal critical riff in unison, and throw in some unasked for and improbable Divine Intervention and wow, I lived. How did the Battle Clerics even know what I was doing? I was the only person in game that would be privy to exactly what I’d planned and executed!

So I survived, but the character wasn’t fun to play anymore. No moment in future gaming with that character could possibly rival that moment, that was the pinnacle, and thus should have been the end point for that character.

The point that Peter is making with this story is that the GM should not have messed with the Players intentions. By bending everything all out of shape to keep the character alive, against the deliberate intent of the player he cheapened the entire expression of genre within the campaign.

In a nutshell, he railroaded the campaign. Really, REALLY badly. There were two possible motives for this: One, it messed with the big finish that he had planned; and/or two, he wanted to be sure that all the PCs had a share in the glory.

And it wasn’t necessary. A little flexibility, a little creativity, and a willingness to discard the big finish that he had planned, would have enabled the GM to up the ante enormously. Writing off the cuff, I replied with the following:

I would have let your action succeed, and let your character die. That of course would not have stopped the events that the bad guy had set in motion – someone from his army would have appointed themselves his heir and successor. The rest of the PCs barely escape with their lives, and the bad guys’ forces run rampant.

Meanwhile, you and your enemy get to confront each other in an afterlife that should not exist and did not exist until you killed this demigod – your enmity is so strong that it transcends death. Not that either of you can actually hurt each other any more, your stats have all equalized from the release of the energies that had made the bad guy semi-divine.

The new #1 bad guy then figures out that his previous master is not completely dead and can be used as a power source, permitting him to up the ante even further. What he doesn’t realize is that he is expending a limited store of energy. The rest of the PCs figure out where he is getting his seemingly-inexhaustible supply of energy (without realizing what the source is) and set out to cut off the supply. They appear by your side in the afterlife.

At this point you all have a clear advantage over the former demigod enemy, but you have realized in the meantime that simply killing him will release his power in its entirety to the former #2 – with no-one left to stop the new Bad Guy.

The only solution: for the rest of the PCs to give up their escape route to free you from the afterlife, taking your place, because you are now the only being around with enough power to take down the #2 after the rest of the PCs do the old #1 in, once and for all. In other words, “If, in an epic climax, a PC comes up with a masterstroke, let it work – then up the ante again”.

An empty death is no worse than an empty life. Unfairly preserving the life of a PC, in Peter’s example, undermined the value of that PC’s entire life.

The Lessons Of Life And Death

The next time you are planning an encounter in a game, make sure that any PC death resulting from it will be a meaningful death, and not a random act of violence designed to make the villain look mean. Any time a PC dies, it should be important to the plot. And if a Hero decides to save the world with a Heroic Sacrifice, don’t cheapen it by undermining the Death. Make sure the player knows the consequences of his choice, and then say ‘yes’. Then up the ante in an even bigger finish if you have to do something to involve the other PCs.

A friend of mine, and a long-time gaming associate, passed away from a massive heart attack this morning. I think I always knew that one day I would receive a phone call with that unhappy news, and at the same time, felt that day would never come. If having fun can be described as feeding the inner child, then Stephen Tunnicliff didn’t just indulge that child, he plied it with campiness and whimsy at every opportunity. While the results could sometimes be annoying, more than often his sense of fun was pervasive and encouraged that inner child in all those around him. At the same time, he was one of the most generous men I have ever known, capable of more exuberance and joy de vivre than anyone else I have ever met. He attended my 21st, and my 40th, Birthday parties. I was at his 50th a few years back.

Stephen in the early '80s, his sense of humor on full display

We regularly had New Years Marathon gaming sessions with him – three days of gaming, morning, afternoon, evening, and night. For many years he was my regular transport to gaming, and often he was the hub around which our gaming revolved. It is a measure of our friendship that of all the campaigns that I have run over the years, Stephen was a player at one time or another in all but two or perhaps three of them. In the histories of those campaigns, he left an indelible impression. Stephen was the kind of player who would pull a lever on the wall just to see what would happen. If given an opportunity to sew mischief as a character, he had to be held back not to indulge the temptation. His first act in the One Faith campaign was to swap the labels on some vials of ingredients being used to brew quick-and-dirty healing potions by an NPC whose attitude had rubbed him the wrong way, just as a practical joke at the NPCs expense – and not realizing that the opportunity had been deliberately set up as Stephen-bait in order to advance the plot. At the same time, he was capable of getting more deeply into character than anyone I knew, because he knew his own tastes and tendencies and created characters that would give himself the opportunity to indulge his own sense of humor. There’s a lesson in character construction in that practice for all of us. I don’t think I will ever sit at a gaming table without remembering him. Rest in peace, Stephen. My games, and my life, will be the poorer without you.

Campaign Mastery was down for a few hours this week due to a configuration issue resulting from a server restore by our host. This manifested as an offer to download a file instead of opening the site. Diagnosing and solving the problem meant that this article couldn’t be finished in time to upload it on Monday as intended. On the other hand, it’s our first downtime at the site since we first went online, over three years ago, so that’s not a bad track record! I just wanted to take a minute to apologize for any inconvenience.

Last Thursday I posted “One word at a time: How I (usually) write a Blog Post” and promised to do a future article on how I use the same techniques to write an adventure. The intention at the time was to show the development of a real adventure from one of my campaigns as the subject and example, but I have since had second thoughts on that count; firstly, since none of the adventures coming up in any of my campaigns are going to be typical in this respect, and secondly, to avoid giving my players any additional OOC knowledge.

That leaves only two options: break my promise (something I try not to do), or come up with a whole new campaign in which to set this example adventure.

To most people, the idea of coming up with an entirely new campaign on just a day or two’s notice might be daunting, but it’s not something that holds great fear for me, as illustrated by my past giveaway campaign ideas here at Campaign Mastery – All Is Three and The Frozen Lands. And, as it happens, the day after posting One word at a time, and coming to the realization that I needed a new Campaign Premise for the purpose, I thought of one. The fact that it came to me while working on ideas for this, completely unrelated, article is an absolute bonus.

The Big Picture

I’m a big fan of implementing bold new ideas into each campaign, giving them a distinctive background structure that makes them different and fresh. The Frozen Lands was about the return of an Ice Age when the world was geared up to fight Global Warming; All Is Three focuses on a hierarchy of Lizardkind evolution and the relationship between three energy types (Divine, Defiling, and Arcane); The Zenith-3 Earth-Regency Campaign is about superheroics in a world where the British Empire never fell; and so on.

I’ve been trumpeting this philosophy almost as long as I’ve been writing here at Campaign Mastery, starting – appropriately enough – with A Quality Of Spirit: Big Questions In RPGs from December 31, 2008. This article talks about questions such as “What is the soul?”, “How Does Magic Work?”, “Does modern Physics apply?”, “What is the nature of time?”, “How was the universe/multiverse created?”, “Are there other planes / other dimensions, and if so where did they come from and what keeps them apart?”, “What are the Gods and where do they come from?”, and so on, and the importance that these questions can and should play in designing a campaign.

Particularly significant is my final comment to the article, where I state:

“…The important thing when considering a ‘Big Picture’ question is working out the implications down to the mundane levels…”

before adding,

“…One of these days I’ll probably write a post on how to do that…”

…which also tells you how far back my ideas list for Campaign Mastery articles stretches!

The Little Guy

That’s what this article is all about – at least making a start on this very big topic. The ambition is to take a campaign concept as it is being developed and look at how to pursue the implications and consequences of the big ideas down to the level of the everyday world, and why it’s important.

In order to achieve this goal in any reasonable length, it’s vital that the “big ideas” actually be a little smaller and more compact than usual.

Why?

The short answer is verisimilitude, believability, plausibility. The longer answer is sustainability.

It is certainly possible to have a campaign in which you have the big ideas but haven’t worked out the implications. The result is that when the players start looking at those implications, they ask “why isn’t this [logical consequence] of [big picture idea] happening?”, and you have to scramble on the spot to answer it.

It’s almost inevitable that you will have to do so occasionally, in any event. But the less development work you have put in, the more you have to improvise, and the greater the chances of a contradiction – which then leads to more scrambling to resolve that contradiction.

On the other hand, if you are at least one step ahead of the players most of the time in your understanding of the game world and how it works, then you can simply sit back, look smug, and reply “That’s a good question. Your character doesn’t know the answer. How are you going to find out?”

In fact, your players can start (in theory) with knowledge zero about “why is it so?” and discover the root premises at the heart of the campaign as they play, while the GM can deliberately salt the adventure path with interesting and enlightening factoids and experiences.

The result is a campaign with inherently greater interest than just another knock-off of the generic fantasy model.

The Serendipitous Collusion Of Disparate Inspirations

So, let’s talk about this new campaign so that we can get into the discussion of how to pursue the implications of big ideas down to the common-man level.

This campaign premise unites elements from a recently-aired episode of the BBC TV series Time Team titled “A Copper Bottomed Dig”, about the Swansea Copper Smelting Industry at Pentrechwyth, Swansea, and specifically the slave trade. Added to that was my recent article on Demographics and Aging, and the impact on the societies of long-lived races by their longevity; and a number of CM blog posts that I had recently reviewed to pick out the ones where I felt the anchor graphic had contributed something extra to the article (refer One word at a time for the results).

The result was a “perfect storm” of ideas that gelled into a concatenation of campaign elements.

Unlike the previous two campaign examples that I have offered here, this particular campaign is not open-ended; it has a specific overall story to tell and it comes to an end after that tale is told.

The Slaves

I started with the concept of slavery, and the notion of “the lesser of two evils” and asked myself under what circumstances would slavery be the lesser of two evils? Obviously, when racial survival was threatened, with enslavement offering an escape.

The next question didn’t really occur to me – for some reason, possibly the influence of All is three or a recent mention on Twitter of them as foes, but from the very beginning I saw the slaves in question as Kobolds.

From there, asking “why” each time knocked down successive dominos. Kobolds enslaved themselves to the various PC races because they were under threat of extermination from Gnolls who viewed them as food.

The Gnolls, who would normally prefer easier prey, faced starvation due to a famine gripping the world – a notion derived from another recent documentary on the collapse of the Egyptian Empire. And what might cause a famine? How about a devastating drought?

That gave me the entire story of why the Kobolds were slaves.

The Campaign Plotline

Next, we need a twist and a direction for the campaign to follow.

What if the Slavery wasn’t simply about survival? What if the Kobolds were in league with someone who had arranged the whole thing simply to put the Kobolds in position to do something more important – like a mass slaughter of sentients?

Perhaps the energy released when something dies, and which Necromancy taps, is proportionate to the lifespan of the creature that is killed. A Necromancer doesn’t have the power to cause a famine, but he can do a deal with someone who does, such as a Devil or Demon.

Perhaps the Necromancer had built some device designed to do something big – make him a god, say. To function, it needs vast amounts of life energy, but it needs to be powered up in stages or the device will absorb more energy than it can store. Each successive wave of murders, in sequence of the lifespan of the creatures targeted, provides the power to use in controlling and absorbing the next stage.

Halflings/Gnomes to Humans to Dwarves to Elves, a hierarchy of devastation. Perhaps it would need to be followed by a Deity or Demigod? That would certainly provide the Necromantic Power to permit the Necromancer to ascend.

It seems an overly ambitious plan for any mortal Necromancer to come up with out of the blue, but what if he weren’t the ultimate evil? What if the being behind the drought had been putting ideas into the Necromancer’s head all along, and rather than simply being a tool of the Necromancer, was the real villain? The degree of planning and organization points to a Ruling Devil not a Demon Prince.

But my players would be expecting a plot twist, and would be looking for it. To surprise them, I need something more – perhaps a second plot twist?

How about if he himself was just an unwitting pawn, the puppet of a deranged Deity, and the real purpose of the Necromantic device was not to elevate the Necromancer to godhood, but to destroy Hades and the other planes of Hell, wiping out the Devils and Demons who abide there? A Deity, tired of the eternal struggle with the forces of evil, might well become desperate enough to consider the sacrifice of 4/5ths of the sentient “good” population of the world, and one of his fellow deities, to be an acceptable price to pay for total victory over those forces.

Putting It All Together

So, what we have is a campaign with the following basic themes:

• Slavery
• Deception
• Betrayal
• Insanity
• Necromancy & Life
• The Price Of Virtue

And with this structure:

1. Campaign Introduction – Establish drought, famine, slavery, social impacts, intro characters
2. Theme Introduction – Establish the themes of deception, betrayal, insanity, and the price of virtue, bind characters into a team. Introduce the relative life-force concept.
3. Gnoll Raid – Establish the Gnoll presence and the Necromancy theme (arm the leader with a life-stealing weapon)
4. Halfling Massacre – Begin the core plotline. Halflings killed by Kobolds, Kobolds killed by Gnolls – no witnesses. Humans, Dwarves, Elves begin taking precautions against slave uprisings.
5. Gnoll Scouting – PCs are sent to scout a Gnoll encampment in an attempt to figure out what they are up to. Outcome: The Gnolls report to a mysterious ‘Master’ who is pulling the strings.
6. Human Massacre – The PCs return to report what they have discovered only to find that what happened to the Halflings has now been done to Humans. Due to the precautions taken, there are survivors, but all is chaos. The PCs have to rally the survivors and bring order from that chaos.
7. Necromantic Spillage – The cleanup detail (one of the jobs that the PCs will have to organize) is disrupted when some of the workers turn cannibal, seemingly die from some form of poisoning (negative energy suffusing the corpses) and rise as ghouls.
8. Gnoll Invasion – The PCs come to the hard realization that there are not enough people to survive as an independent community when the Gnolls take advantage of the collapsed defenses to launch an invasion. They have to lead their rag-tag band of survivors to the nearest safe refuge, the tunnels of the dwarves, under repeated attack from Gnolls.
9. Refugee Underground – The Dwarves are suspicious and reluctant to accept the refugees. They are having internal problems of their own – their citizens have been vanishing. The PCs have to solve the mystery or they will be turned away. They find evidence that the missing dwarves have been captured and enslaved by Drow, but things don’t add up. Digging deeper, they discover that a Dwarf has been eliminating rivals for the affection of a popular female dwarf.
10. Zombie Apocalypse – The Dwarven crypts crack open in an earthquake, releasing Dwarven Zombies with added powers that no-one can explain.
11. Dwarven Massacre – The Kobold slaves working the mines for their Dwarven Masters take advantage of the chaos caused by the Zombie Apocalypse to turn on their masters, weakening the defenses against the Zombies. The PCs and the tatters of the Dwarven and human populations are cornered and fighting for their lives as wave after wave of uber-zombies attack. They are about to attempt escape Through an act of sheer desperation, when….
12. Elvish Intervention – …a rescue party of Elves arrive. They lead the party and the other survivors back to their camp, where they reveal that they had come in search of the PCs specifically, because they had detected a funneling of the life energy liberated by the slaughters leading to something Necromantic going on in the Gnoll lands – and the PCs are the experts in conditions there. All the Necromantic problems they have experienced have just been leakage, a side-effect of something bigger. The discussion is then interrupted as a band of Demons erupts from a hole in the sky. Their gloating and shouts during the ensuing battle describe the combatants as “the ones who know too much” – referring to the Elves as well as the PCs.
13. Raid – The Elves lead the PCs back to their community, only to discover that while the Demons were attempting to destroy the PCs and their Elvish rescue party, Gnolls had set fire to the Elvish Forest (distracting the defenders) while Demons had freed the Kobolds that had been imprisoned following the PCs warning, trapping the Elves between flames and a violent death. The Elves are sure that some of their kin will have survived; they will take charge of the survivors and lead them to safety, but they need the PCs to mount a secret raid into Gnoll Territory in search of whoever or whatever is responsible – and stopping them. The Elves don’t know exactly where it is, but they can point the PCs in roughly the right direction. And so they set out…
14. Necromancer – When the PCs finally reach the tower of the Necromancer (the only structure still standing in the right direction), they have to get into it. Inside, they discover that a High Priest of [deity to be sacrificed] had survived the massacre and is being tortured by a tall figure with very small arms until he summons his deity’s avatar. The PCs interrupt and fight the Necromancer [species?] to an apparent victory, rescuing the High Priest. Afterwards, they learn about the Necromancer’s foul creation, the Ascension Crystal, and the purpose behind the Kobold Betrayal. They also learn that leakage from the Ascension Crystal is responsible for the Undead Traumas that have added to civilization’s recent woes, and that the problem will only get worse if the Crystal remains intact. They are considering ways of destroying it when [Demon’s Name], a Balor, appears and reaches for the crystal…
15. Life Is Hell – In an attempt to drive off the Balor, [The High Priest] summons the avatar of [Deity to be destroyed]. Balor Gloats, fires a bolt of energy into the Ascension Crystal which blasts the Avatar. Reality is briefly disrupted, revealing the connection between Avatar and Deity. As the PCs watch in horror, the Necromantic Energy erupts up the connection, turning the Deity into a greasy spot. [Demon] Gloats some more, exultantly proclaiming that the Ascension Crystal is now fully charged, a theological bomb capable of destroying the Heavenly Planes in one fell swoop – or perhaps he will employ it to destroy the Archdemons of the Nine Hells and ascend to dominion over all. He gates out with the Ascension Crystal. The Gods show up to investigate what had happened to their fallen brother. They reveal that they cannot enter the Abyss – if it’s bad for mortals it’s even more deadly for Deities – it is going to be up to the PCs to save Divinity from extinction. Succeed and eventually the survivors will repopulate the world, fail and the Demons will assume dominion over all. But they can assist the PCs by giving them superior equipment – the best in the world, in fact. When so armed and equipped, they open the Gates Of Hell long enough for the PCs to enter. Once there, they have to follow the trail of the Balor responsible until they recapture the device. This quickly leads to a confrontation with the first of the Archdemons who rule the Nine Hells…
16. The Council of Nine – I’ve always felt that the Lawfulness of Devils would translate into a firm hierarchy, and there is no use in having a position within that hierarchy if it doesn’t get flaunted before your lessers every now and then. That implies that the ruling Lords of the Nine Hells would have regular gatherings for the airing and resolution of grievances and the addressing problems affecting the entire group – a conclave or council of some sort. It should also be clear that no Balor could get away with the things [Responsible Balor] has done without the tacit approval of one of the Ruling Lords. As soon as the PCs reach the uppermost layer of Hell, they should find themselves enmeshed in a lawful-evil bureaucracy through which they have to fight there way in order to present their case to that Council. (Members of the council are detailed in Fiendish Codex II, Tyrants Of The Nine Hells). As a result, the PCs will find themselves enmeshed in the ongoing dominance games of the Council, but will eventually get to present their case to the most powerful of the Ruling Lords, Asmodeus. Of all the Lords, Bel would seem to be the most likely to be behind the events, but Levistus would run him a close second and either Baalzebul or Mephistophiles a distant third. Asmodeus would seem to have the most to lose, and is capable of compelling the cooperation of the others, so if the PCs are convincing, they will win permission to play detective in the Nine Hells.
17. The Face Of Evil – The PCs discover that none of the Nine current Archdukes Of Evil are responsible, the culprit is one who was cast down from the council in “recent” times – The Hag Countess (refer Glasya in Fiendish Codex II), who has forged an alliance with Belial. Confrontation by the Council results in confusion as both first attempt to lie their way out of trouble and then blame each other; Asmodeus will verify that neither of them actually thought of the idea, the Balor [Responsible Demon] who acted as their instrument and go-between approached each in the other’s name. A search of the records of Hell has meanwhile established that the name of the Balor is not recorded on their infernal rolls. But if he’s not a Balor, then who or what is he? And how long do the PCs have left before he uses the power of the Ascension Crystal? For that matter, why hasn’t he done so already?
18. The Axe Falls – The Epic Conclusion. As the nearest thing to “Neutral Parties”, equally mistrusted by all, the Council Of Nine set aside their enmity (briefly) in the face of a common and unknown enemy and invest the PCs with command of a small army of Hell. The Ascension Crystal is located in the centre of the central layer of the Nine Hells, right next to the entombed true body of Levistus. Clearly, he has withheld vital knowledge from the Council. Confronting his Aspect reveals that he was challenged to a duel of honor – and lost. Had he won the duel, he would have been freed from his prison; since he lost, he was compelled to assist in the creation and empowerment of the Ascension Crystal, and the manipulation of Balial and the Hag Countess who caused the Drought. He is somehow blocked from naming the other party to the duel, but Asmodeus sets to work unbinding him from the compulsion – at which point an Army of Archons invades the council chamber and Hell generally. Although they don’t have the power to defeat the Lords of Hell, they can delay them – which leaves the PCs as the only independent force that can stop whoever is ultimately responsible from triggering the Ascension Crystal. Asmodeus forces the aspect of Levistus to open a portal to his true body, where his servants continue their unceasing attempts to cut their master’s body free of the ice that entombs it. The PCs, pursued by and under fire from Archons themselves, travel through it to confront the true architect of the untold misery, the Mad God [Identity to be determined].

The final parts of this campaign completely (and temporarily) invert the loyalties of the PCs, as they go from compelling the reluctant aid of the Archdevils to being their allies against the Mad God. At some point in that final battle, they will experience a reality check in which the irony of their situation will be emphasized to them, when their enemy attempts to employ Reason against them. The PCs hold the balance of power – they can turn the Ascension Crystal against Heaven and the Mad God (wiping out the Gods in the process) or permit the Mad God to wield it against their temporary (reluctant) allies – justifying all the evil that has brought them to this point. Of course, the price of doing what’s right means giving the Devils unchecked superiority over the mortal world. They may even fight amongst themselves! Ultimately, they get to decide the fate of the world.

It needs a name

Even when a campaign idea is only in initial development, it needs a name, if only to provide a label for use in discussing the campaign. This can be the final title, or just a working title. Based on the apocalyptic events of the outline and on the environment (for reasons that will become clear shortly), I have decided to give this campaign the working title of “Arignoza”, an unrecognizable blend of “Arizona” and “Ragnerok”. This will be the name of the human kingdom from which the PCs, as a group, will derive, giving it an obvious meaning for the players to comprehend immediately. It also has a second layer of meaning since “Arig” sounds very like “Arid”, which describes the drought-stricken premise of the game world. Only the GM needs to know that there is a third, even more obscure layer of meaning – and yet, knowing the derivation of the name, the GM can never help but be reminded of the overall plot every time he mentions the name of the campaign, a useful mnemonic.

Big Changes for ‘the little guy’

None of this will be all that credible if the initial foundations of the campaign are not plausible. There are two things that whose impact should be felt, and displayed, by every member of society, in everything they do. Those are the drought and its consequences; and the “Slavery” of the Kobolds. A third element, the threat of the Gnolls and reactions to it, will also need careful integration. Finally, the connection between lifespan and the strength of the life force liberated and utilizes by Necromancy will need to be established very clearly. These are all requirements of the first two adventures in the campaign. Later, the society and bureaucracy of Demons will need equal care in its preparations, but a lot of that effort is carried out for the GM in Fiendish Codex II.

The Effects Of The Drought

Urban populations need food to survive, and food needs water. Civilization will necessarily contract into those areas where water is still available – along the banks of the major rivers, the sources of natural springs, and mountainous valleys. Entire villages and towns will be necessarily abandoned, or starve. The ruins will provide shelter for undesirable neighbors of all types – provided that they, too, can survive on minimal water supplies.

Cattle and Horses need grass, and grass would not fare very well under the impact of a decades-long drought. Large livestock would be a luxury that few can afford, and the prices and upkeep of such creatures would become prohibitively expensive. Crops that require a lot of water like wheat, cotton, and rice would also fail over wide areas. Access to potable water would be the determining factor in land values, and wars would no doubt be fought between those who have and those who want.

Inevitably, famine would result, and as much as nine tenths of the population would die off within the second or third year – there would be a small grace period while people survived on stores. For some years, ruined towns and cities would be havens of disease, entered only at great risk and greater need.

Animal products would also become much more expensive, and be much less common. Cloth in general would be reserved for the rich (wool would be too hot to wear except in the mountains). Dried and woven reeds would become the common clothing. It would become more common to travel by night, when cooler temperatures would reduce hydration needs. Similarly, hard labor would also be a nightly activity.

Humans require light in order to work at such times, and the combination of torches & lanterns with the naturally dry conditions would cause a number of devastating fires. Buildings would be made of adobe, clay bricks, or stone, not timber. In fact, forests would shrink and deteriorate. For a while, there would be abundant dead wood for furniture, but as the drought entered its second decade, this commodity would also be becoming more scarce and valuable.

Overall, a continental climate would more closely resemble that of Arizona or Mexico.

The depopulation would also have its effects on the price of labor. Less time could be spared from the needs of survival for any form of higher education, and skills would necessarily be far less broad. It would be worth considering a house rule reducing the number of skill points available to characters, or perhaps many class skills would become cross-class skills.

Any community which contained a wizard or sorcerer capable of summoning a Water Elemental would prosper in comparison with those without. Such abilities would automatically make one a prominent member of society to be catered to.

A systematic approach

All of the above were determined by free association. For a while, that approach works – but it’s altogether too easy to overlook something. For that reason, when I am assessing the impact of a big change like this one, I use the free association technique to get my thoughts into the correct headspace and then turn to a more systematic approach.

In sequence, I consider:

• Products, Crops, & Foodstuffs,
• Skills, especially Crafts & Professions,
• Social Impacts,
• Economic & Employment Impacts,
• Educational Impacts,
• Social Class Impacts,
• Law-enforcement Impacts,
• Theological Impacts,
• Myths and Legends,
• Government Impacts,
• Race Relations & Lingual Impacts,
• Military & Natural Disaster Impacts, and finally,
• Character Class Impacts.

This list is carefully sequenced in such a way that contributing secondary factors can be taken into account based on earlier findings. The relative availability of products, crops, and foodstuffs determines what raw materials exist for skills to utilize, and hence alters the skill pool. Both of these in turn weigh into the social impact, and those consequences are then reflected in the economic and employment effects on society, and so on. For each item, I use the relevant sections of PHB and DMG (or their equivalents) as a reference checklist.

Once I’ve been through the list once, I go through it again looking for Tertiary consequences, but in general the first pass is usually enough. The goal is to determine the impact on the everyday lives of everyday citizens, because this is the framework into which characters – and especially PCs – have to fit.

I then repeat the process for the next ‘big ticket’ item on the list, bearing in mind the consequences of the first.

For example, and in the case of this campaign concept, the lack of draft animals would mean that slave labor would be a natural substitute. In order to obtain enough food for everyone, this would in fact be an absolute necessity. Kobold-carried litters would also replace wagons. If it is assumed that the Lizard-like characteristics of Kobolds would make them more able to survive on low water rations, they might well be better-suited to survival in this environment. Having a Kobold slave could markedly improve the survival prospects and prosperity of even the lowest and most poverty-stricken members of society, and it would be easy for the numbers of slaves to quickly exceed the numbers of non-slaves. I chose Gnolls because they seemed the type of creature to eat anything – but with their natural food supplies depleted by the drought, they would be forced to turn to some other food supply, something plentiful in number. The Kobolds, under these circumstances, would seem to fit that description.

Grand Concepts and The Little Guy

The power of a grand concept is the excitement of the imagination that it presents, but in order to arouse that excitement in players, it needs to be presented to them in a digestible format. You need a revelatory scene in which this particular secret underpinning of existence stands revealed. When this reveal takes place, it can be under one of two circumstances: either it explains the “why” of things that the PCs have observed in the past, revealing them to be practical consequences of the high concept, or it is contradicted by the absence of those practical consequences.

I’ve used both phenomena in past campaigns and adventures to my – and the campaign’s – advantage. Presenting the everyday consequences as “just the way things are” early in the campaign makes the conceptual underpinning feel utterly plausible when it is discovered by the players, as they gain a new understanding of the world akin to the exultation of a physicist discovering a new Law of Physics. What’s more, understanding this “why” gives the players a tool to use in their planning for the future because it is an understanding of How The World Works that others do not share. It might make new technologies possible, or ways to bypass seemingly impregnable defenses, or simply by excluding the consequences, hint at other undiscovered principles. It can provide motivations and explanations for past events and insights into the history of the world.

A false or incomplete explanation can seemingly explain everything, only to stand revealed as flawed when decisions based on that explanation don’t have the expected outcome – a phenomenon that I used extensively in my Champions campaign, where I had worked out a complete game physics but NOT revealed it to the players. As a result, more than a dozen adventures could be derived from the revelation of parts of that game physics, and some of the most entertaining adventures were simply the PCs in a laboratory trying to figure out why something was happening, or how they could achieve a certain technology that they considered useful. When I started the Zenith-3 campaign, I was able to take the entirety of that original game physics and describe it as the state of the art, superscience well in advance of the general human understanding – since I had been able to expand on it in secret for a decade or so, incorporating new ideas and new real-world discoveries. You can see the impact of this approach in my campaign excerpt, It’s Reality, Jim, but not As We Know It: St Barbara.

So powerful and functional is the relationship between high concept and mundane consequences that I frequently use a desired “mundane consequence” to derive a functional high concept that will justify it, as I explained in A Perfect Vision Through A Glass, Darkly and Part one of the Distilled Cultural Essence series.

A practical approach is also the ideal solution

I want to conclude this article by pointing out the virtue of compromising in this approach to campaign design and construction.

Creating a completely-delineated cause-and-effect sequence that proceeds flawlessly from a big idea to encompass all the possible consequences and their interactions takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. It’s altogether too easy to miss something, even when adopting the carefully systematic approach I have described, and which I employ. In order to make this approach practical, you have to establish a hierarchy of needs, derived from the campaign outline – a list of encounter and plot elements that you know are going to appear in the campaign. Working out the impact on those of the big ideas is quite enough work to be getting on with.

There’s absolutely no mention of Dragons or of Demons in the example Arignoza campaign outline. That doesn’t mean that they won’t be affected by it; to the contrary, the Longevity of both would be of great importance, and would probably be the source of their powers. I would even be tempted to make Demonic abilities Arcane in nature instead of divine, an ultimate threat to Wizards and Sorcerers just as Devils are to Clerics. But I don’t have to spend a lot of time working on the impact on these creatures until one of them becomes important in the campaign. (If I were to decide to accede to that temptation, that would be as soon as a Wizard became important to the party, ie if a player chose that class for his PC). I might even use Dragons as an equivalent threat for Druids to combat, just to extend the principle, because it would seem to be consistent.

A better example, perhaps, would be Bugbears and Trolls. The ascendancy of the Gnolls would certainly impact on these other menaces, and they would be equally affected by the drought and resulting famine – but I don’t need to worry about these monsters until one turns up in the campaign.

Aside from making the whole project manageable, this “zone of exclusion” imparts flexibility to the campaign background. If my projections of consequences turn out to be a little bit off in one particular or another, or need reinforcement to enable the players to fully suspend disbelief, I can use one of these other races to provide a correction or that little bit of confirmation as necessary.

Another key question are the identities of the deity to be sacrificed, and of the one who has chosen such a desperate solution. One of the PCs will almost certainly be a cleric; choosing the cleric’s deity is up to the player; making the chosen deity one of these two who are so central to the plot makes the plot especially relevant to the PC in question. If the cleric’s deity is the one to be killed in furtherance of the plotline, he will become bereft of powers until the other Gods step in to fill the breach, and will fire the cleric for revenge, an added depth of motivation but one that undermines the “Players’ Choice” aspect of the big finish. If the clerics’ deity is the one that has gone mad then that insanity can be hinted at in advance of the revelation, and it makes the choice of whether or not to oppose him all the more poignant for the PC. Choosing between these options shouldn’t be done in advance, but should be left until the Player chooses his deity – then adjudged on the basis of the personality and portfolio of the deity in question.

Sandboxing the development of the campaign background to those elements that are needed at the current time within the campaign not only spreads out the workload involved in creating the campaign, it gives the GM flexibility. Until it is actually necessary to do so, I would simply note these ideas and index them by key words. I might hint at them in player briefing materials without giving details, but that’s it.

In conclusion

People generally derive great satisfaction from taking observations of effects and deducing the causes that lie behind them. The more convincing these theories are, the more they explain, the greater that satisfaction. This is as true of gamers as it is to scientists, conspiracy theorists, or the public at large. It is one of the reasons why police procedurals are such an enduring television genre. By determining the consequences for the little guy, the mundane and everyday, and the ordinary inhabitants of the game world, you are offering clues to the end cause for your players to consider. The more fundamental the conceptual change, the more broadly its effects should be (and would be) felt, the more clues the players have as to that point of uniqueness within your campaign, and the more plausible that point of uniqueness will seem when it is finally deduced or revealed.

At the same time, the more fundamental the conceptual change, the more it needs those consequences to make it plausible. Their absence undermines the credibility of the GM and campaign just as strongly as their presence reinforces it. There is nothing worse than the GM revealing the central concept of his masterpiece only for a player to reply, “I’m not convinced.”

The Devil, as always, is in the detail.

Every writer gets asked, from time to time, his or her process for writing. For those on the outside of the profession, this question is usually cloaked in the guise “Where do you get your ideas?” – something I’ve answered here and there on previous occasions – but for those on the inside, the question is more frequently couched in more specific terms. In particular, I’ve been flattered with praise for my ability to see the trees while keeping an eye on the shape of the forest, for being able to hold a broad overall plan in mind while focusing on a narrower question. My campaigns have a similar style about them, with smaller building blocks – adventure plots and subplots – that come together in a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts by virtue of the connections between those creative elements.

I use the same, essentially self-taught, process for writing everything – from RPG adventures to fiction, correspondence to game supplements. That means that it is a subject worth examining here at Campaign Mastery. I’m going to do so from two perspectives: first, I’m going to talk about how I write a Blog Post, using this very post as the example, and then – at some future point (which might be as soon as next week) – I’ll illustrate how I write an adventure for one of my campaigns.

Initial Subject

I start with a subject. Sometimes this is just a heading, sometimes it’s a paragraph, and sometimes there’s correspondence. I keep a list of these at the bottom of the file in which I keep blogs under development – the only time a prospective post leaves this document is when it gets deleted after posting, or when it gets extracted to a separate file because it has formed part of a tightly-connected series. Quite often, this will form the blog title and/or subtitle, or at least, a working title. There’ll be more on the subject of article titles a little later.

The initial subject for this article was “How I (Usually) Write” – which has indeed formed part of the subheading for this post.

Synopsis

Although I will occasionally write a 1-2 line synopsis of what the article is about when I first list the subject, I will more often leave that until I actually start writing the blog post itself. The synopsis outlines the subject of the article and the value that it proposes to offer the reader. This is a reminder to myself of where the article is to go, what I’m trying to say in it, and why the journey is worthwhile. These almost always end up being incorporated into the first paragraph or two in the introduction, or the last paragraph or two in the conclusion (very rarely, both).

The synopsis for this article was “Structure, Process/Procedure, Narrative – same process as for adventures and novels. Creativity and dialogue vs. logic.”

Headings

I then break the discussion down into a series of bullet points that will usually become the topic headings. While I may sometimes have a clear vision of the breakdown sequence, more often than not these are generated by free association and then ordered into something vaguely sensible. These are signposts on my mental “map” from point A (introduction) to B (conclusion), with the narrative to serve as tour guide. If there is no obviously logical sequence, as when I am trying to look at all aspects of something, or (sometimes) when I am trying to answer a question, I’ll try to proceed from simplest to most complex.

Subheadings

More often than not, a single layer of headings is not deep enough or rich enough to encompass the full details. This is especially true if there is a list of some sort involved, where each item on the list needs its own discussion. As a rule of thumb, if everything I have to say will fit into a single, reasonably brief, paragraph, the list is better treated as such; if it doesn’t fit that restriction, then it’s better to present the list and then dedicate a subheading to each item on the list.

Because both headings and subheadings are generated by both logic and free association to identify related questions, this permits a holistic approach that usually ensures full coverage of a subject, and a somewhat organic structure to the article that reads naturally. While they will often be listed in the same sequence they are thought of, because one thought naturally follows another, there will be times when I will go back and insert a new item, and times when I will use drag-and-drop on a line to re-sequence the thoughts into something more coherent.

Blueprint Review

The end result is a working blueprint for the content. The progression from discussion point to discussion point should be reasonably clear; to mix metaphors, the blueprint is a plan for the eventual shape of the forest. Using it as a guideline, I can focus as much attention as necessary on each individual tree while preserving the overall shape of the landscape. I will usually review this blueprint a time or two before I start actually writing the article, just to ensure that there are no other topics to be discussed, and that the “roadmap” does indeed get from point A to B, from proposal or idea to some sort of destination.

The “roadmap” for this article, showing both headings and subheadings, is shown below, exactly as I produced it. A couple of the entries were inserted afterwards, and some of the topic headings became subtopics, and vice-versa, but the overall structure reflects the routine process that I employ to write a blog post. You’ll notice that I’m often lazy about capitals in the list – I want to generate it as quickly as possible.

* introduction
* initial subject
* synopsis
* headings
* subheadings
* blueprint review
** heading synopsis
   – why, how, the urgency
* stylistic considerations
* one section at a time
** narrative considerations
** resequencing headings & subheadings
** author’s comments, asides, and sidebars
** links & references
* length & subdivision
* read it
* revise it
* spellcheck it
* the title
* wait
* re-read it
* artwork/illustration
* editing
** layout

Heading Synopsis

Usually, the heading is enough. Sometimes, though, the heading might be more artistic and expressive than defining of the subject, or there might be some subtle point that I want to be sure to make. When that happens, I’ll add another 1-2 line synopsis under the heading. It’s important to do this before you start writing anything more than the introduction, and preferably while still at this stage of the writing process, because these are the sort of details that can get lost when you get distracted by the actual writing, or that can so monopolize your attention that you lose focus on the overall direction of the article – that “forest for the trees” problem manifesting itself.

The “roadmap” shown above uses a heading synopsis when describing this very section. I probably didn’t need the “why” and “how”, but wanted to be sure to remember to mention the urgency, ie the need to do such synopses while you still have the overall article in mind – and not to wait until those details are forgotten.

Stylistic Considerations

When I write, there are a couple of rules that I try to follow, from which I will only deviate when absolutely necessary. The first is to always try and describe or explain the need for something before I actually provide it – I always want the answer to the question “Why is this here?” to be self-evident. The second is to ensure that there is always a topic introduction before moving into subtopics – something you’ll see in action in the next section of this article. And the third is to always define a term or procedure before I employ it, unless that term is sufficiently well-known within the sphere of RPG games or is otherwise self-explanatory.

The Writing Begins

I then start writing the article. I tend to adopt a conversational style, simply because that comes naturally to me. Sometimes, I even point-counterpoint myself to keep the narrative going. While I may have a general idea of the topic, and even of what is to be said concerning that topic, I’ll generally start at the top of each section and work my way down until they are all finished – or until the length becomes so great that I have to divide the post into a series (more on that a little later). Sometimes I will have a few rough notes to follow, made when I start working on a section, just to make sure that I mention everything I want to do, and use any particular turns of phrase that have come to mind and that I especially like.

I tend to write very quickly as a result of this approach. However, unlike a real-life conversation, you can always go back and insert in an afterthought when one comes to mind (as it often does) – such as this entire paragraph.

Sometimes I will leave writing the introduction until the end, at other times it flows naturally. In general, the less sure I am about what conclusion I will come to, such as when I am illustrating or discussing some process or procedure that I use, the more likely I am to leave the introduction until the end.

I also have a weakness for being warm, friendly, and (hopefully) witty in my opening paragraphs – if they aren’t entertaining enough, they may get scrapped and left until later.

Narrative Considerations

Another point that should be made is that I don’t slavishly follow the blueprint. If what I have to say in any given subsection leads more naturally to a different subheading than the one originally scheduled to follow the passages just drafted, then I will at least consider moving that subsection. Conversely, if for some reason I’m having trouble elucidating the point of a particular subheading, then – after a couple of attempts – I will move it down the list, or simply leave a half-dozen lines of blank space so that it becomes obvious that there is a blank to be filled in.

The goal is to have the narrative flow naturally; instead of completing one subtopic and going all the way back to the main topic to start the next, I try to build on the neighboring (and preceding) subtopic.

That also means that sometimes, one subsection will consume another – as this one has done to what was supposed to be the next subtopic, “resequencing headings & subheadings”.

Author’s notes, Comments, Asides, and Sidebars

I’ll often drop these in to break up an article that’s becoming too monolithic. I have no rules to decide when to do so – in general, if I think of a side-comment at the time, I’ll often include it in the narrative at that point, but use some form of formatting to set it aside from the rest of the text. So they are usually written at the time and when I get up to the point at which they appear.

Another reason to include them is that I am a big fan of glimpses “behind the curtain”. If you know what an author or game designer is trying to achieve with a given chapter, rule, or subsystem, whether they succeed or fail becomes less important. It helps interpret anything that’s unclear, and provides a direction for any replacements – whether those be by the same author, by a house rule, or by some other means up update. If I know why something is there, it can help me understand what is there. Or elsewhere, by analogy. It also helps distinguish between design objectives and unintended byproducts.

Comments also get added in, occasionally, when I feel the need to clarify something and don’t want to monkey with the original text for some reason. These are the equivalent of footnotes, but are presented generally at the point of referance rather than at the end of the article.

Sidebars are a different story.

Sidebars

When I toured the US in the 70s, my family and I visited Las Vegas. While there, we had the option of a side-trip to the Grand Canyon, but couldn’t afford it – and were distracted by the theft of our luggage, anyway. When I went back to the States in the 90s for the Boston Worldcon (World Science Fiction Convention for the uninitiated), I took in a day excursion to Salem, Massachusetts. Sidebars are the same thing – something extra, not needed for the main text, but relevant and that add something substantial to the article.

Sometimes, these are written before I start work on the article, sometimes they are written when I get to that point in the article, but most frequently I will leave them until the very last. The reason for this is simple – until the main article is written, I can never be sure whether it will prove necessary to incorporate them into the main text or not. There have been any number of occasions when I have written myself into a corner and something I had slated for a sidebar furnished the escape hatch. (There have also been occasions when content originally thought to belong in a sidebar grew sufficiently to become a new article in its own right.)

Having learned from this type of experience, I will generally define and position a sidebar at the time I’m working on the main text but leave the writing of it until I’ve reviewed the text without it. At most, I’ll make a few notes in advance.

Links & References

Links & references, on the other hand, happen while I’m writing – and they happen afterwards as well. Let me explain:-

Because I write my posts offline and only upload and format them when they are ready to go – except under unusual circumstances – URLS don’t become hyperlinks until the editing stage, when I’m actually using the word processor that comes with the Blogging platform. Prior to that, they exist in a far more primitive form.

Nor do I like interrupting the flow of adding words to the text to go chase up some reference unless I need the information in order to continue writing. The rest of the time, I’ll simply put the phrase to be hyperlinked on a line by itself, followed by a blank line, and then the reminder “[link]”, and then continue writing the text. Like this:

Here’s a line of text that is going to have a
linked reference

[link]
in the middle of the sentence.

Once I’ve finished writing, I go through and look up / search for the URLs that I need for the link and copy-&-paste them into the blank line. I can find them within the text quickly and easily because of the world “link” in the square brackets. So, assuming that I have done so for the example, it would now look like this:

Here’s a line of text that is going to have a
linked reference
http://www.goesnowhere.com/not-a-real-web-page/
[link]
in the middle of the sentence.

If, on the other hand, I needed to look something up in order to continue writing the article, I’ll put the URL into the space immediately I access the web page. So it will look like the second example above immediately.

In the editing phase, I cut the URL out of the text and convert the phrase on a line by itself to a hyperlink, do any editing (I like URLs in my articles to open in a new tab rather than taking readers away from the article, so I insert ‘target=”_blank” if I have to), then tidy up the sentence. In other words, the above would be changed to read

Here’s a line of text that is going to have a
<a href=”http://www.goesnowhere.com/not-a-real-web-page/” target=”_blank”>linked referance<a>

[link]
in the middle of the sentence.

and then to

Here’s a line of text that is going to have a <a href=”http://www.goesnowhere.com/not-a-real-web-page/” target=”_blank”>linked referance</a> in the middle of the sentence.

once I have double-checked that the link works properly. Which means that the reader sees:

Here’s a line of text that is going to have a linked referance in the middle of the sentence.

exactly as intended. NB: don’t bother clicking on that hyperlink – it doesn’t go anywhere!

Length & Subdivision

I aim for my articles to be between two and three thousand words each, but I’m pretty poor at estimating the length as I go, so I’m not overly bothered if a post weighs in at anything less than 5,000 words. If a post is significantly more than 5,000 words, I start taking a hard look to decide whether or not it can be split in two. If I look like hitting that 5,000 word limit (i.e. I’ve written “a lot” of text) with 3/4 or more of the article still to be written, I’ll think even more seriously about whether or not it can be turned into a series of smaller articles.

Several of the 21 series (and counting) that we have here at Campaign Mastery started life intended to be a single article.

Lately, I’ve been a little more flexible in this respect; our WordPress installation used to have a problem losing text if a post was more than about 5K words. The longest post that I can remember ever posting here is about 12000 words long – a special case – and the shortest was only a couple of hundred – again, special circumstances. By and large, I average 3500-4000 words a post.

Subdivision, if it is to occur, happens in one of two ways: (1) I simply run out of time and put the break-point at the end of the last-completed section; or (2) where possible, I divide the article into two parts along more logical lines.

Once again, this article is an example; the original notion was to include the ‘writing an adventure’ equivalents as part of the text, probably in a different-colored text box to distinguish from the ones that look like this. By the time I got to the section on sidebars above, I knew that approach was a non-starter as I already had three-and-half screens of text. These words are located most of the way through the fifth screen. So I immediately revised the opening paragraphs and split the article in two. This part comes in at between 4800 and 4900 words.

Read It

The first thing I do when I finish writing an article is to read it – top to bottom. I’m specifically looking for phrasing that doesn’t sound quite right, explanations that don’t explain clearly enough, obvious errors of logic, and other such faux pas. I’m also giving my mind a chance to find any blank spots in the text where I should have explained something but didn’t. I usually won’t revise it at this point – I want to read through the whole thing without pausing. Anywhere that needs revision, I’ll simply change the text color and move on.

Revise It

Having read it from start to finish, I’ll start again, revising it as I go.

Spellcheck It

While I don’t use a full-powered word processor to write things – I normally rely on Wordpad – when the article looks finished, I’ll copy it into a word document and spell-check it. I didn’t do this for the first year or so, and as a result some horrendous errors crept in. I usually set the language to US English, even though my native tongue is Australian English – we have some different phrases (which stay in), and some differences in spelling – “colour” instead of “color”, “behaviour” instead of “behavior”, and so on (which get corrected). The reason is that most of Campaign Mastery’s readers are American, and this is at least a gesture of recognition of that fact. Once I’ve finished, I’ll copy-and-paste back over the original in my working document.

The Title

It’s common for me to have the title of an article before I start to write, but I have been known to be tweaking it at the 11th hour. Most Campaign Mastery titles come in two parts, the artistic and the literal. The artistic title is what I actually think of as the title of the piece, and the literal is a subtitle that explains what the article is about.

The title of this article, therefore, is “One Word At A Time” and the subtitle is “How I (Usually) Write A Blog Post”. The goal of the artistic title is to be distinctive, and to give the collective “title” a bit of unique flavor.

When it comes to series, I generally turn the Subtitle into the series title and shift the “artistic” title into the subtitle position, though there have been exceptions made. An obvious example is the ongoing series detailing the history of Earth-regency from my superhero campaign.

Above all, the goal of the title is to entice people into reading the article, and secondarily to communicate the subject. Everything else can be considered tertiary to those objectives.

Wait

Whenever possible, I like to leave an article to sit for 24 hours before making it public. This gives me time to clear my mind of all the things that I was thinking while writing it, setting me up for the next step:

Re-Read It

Every writer strives to achieve clarity in their writing. Clear communication is far more important than any pretentious literary merit that is often only in the eye of the beholder, anyway. The best way that I know of achieving that clarity is to read what you have written after putting some distance between yourself and the process of writing it.

Art/Illustration

There are three types of picture that go with an article at Campaign Mastery. The first clarifies, amplifies, explains, or illustrates part of the text. These illustrations are not always part of an article. The second is a visual reference, such as the cover of a book that is referenced within the text. Again, these illustrations are not present all the time. The final type I think of as the “anchor” to the article. These are always at the top of a post, and it’s a very rare article at CM that doesn’t have one. Each of these is handled a little differently.

Specific Illustrations

If these are going to be very quick to produce, I do them on the spot. If they are going to take time, I’ll do a quick sketch of what I have in mind on a pad of paper and wait until I’ve finished writing. But I break both rules all the time, depending on how inspired I’m feeling and how clearly I can see the end result in my mind’s eye.

Visual References

Whenever I cite a reference, I always like to tell people where they can buy it, whether that is Amazon, eBay (okay, there haven’t been any from there yet) or RPGNow. And, when possible – and if it won’t interfere with the flow of the text by distracting the reader from the message and ideas that I am trying to convey – I like to illustrate that reference. If nothing else, it helps break up monolithic blocks of text; but secondly, it can add a second channel of communication. I find that if you are doing nothing but reading words, it often doesn’t paint a picture in the mind; but that once you kick-start the visual sense, it keeps working. I wish that more movie/TV studios, actors, and musicians made publicity stills available for use without copyright complications to use for this purpose, but I’ll work with what I can get!

Anchor Illustration

These exist to function as a visual ‘tag’ for the article, and to kick-start that visual sense that I referred to a moment ago. They are usually left until the text is finished. I always aim for the anchor illustration to add something to the text, whether its a sense of personality or a metaphor for the subject matter. I work hard to find the right illustration, and often have to ‘tweak’ or enhance it before all the nuances that I’m trying to convey are present.

When I finish writing the article, I list as many key words or metaphors for the subject as I can think of. I deliberately try to find a different angle or perspective on the subject in the picture; it’s not enough for it simply to illustrate the article, I want it to add to it. Sometimes this goal is achieved, sometimes I only come close – and sometimes I have to take what I can get. Here are 25 samples from the last two years that I think really hit the mark, in reverse chronological order (click the thumbnail to open the post):

Hints, Metaphors, and Mindgames: Naming Adventures (Part 2)	A Rational Intuition	The Echo Of Events To Come: foreshadowing in a campaign structure	Pieces Of Creation: The Hidden Truth Of Dopplegangers	Making The Loot Part Of The Plot: The Value Of Magic
Fascinating Topological Limits: FTL in Gaming	By The Seat Of Your Pants: Six Foundations Of Adventure	We All Have Our Roles To Play: Personality Archetypes, Part 4. Photo by clafouti.	The Nth Level Of Abstraction	On The Nature Of Flaws
Life, Death, and Life Renewed - March 2011 Blog Carnival	Wham! Clang! Kapow! Character Conventions In Pulp	Lessons From The West Wing III: Time Happens In The Background	We All Have Our Roles To Play: Personality Archetypes, Part 2	The Dark Side Of The Mind: Examining Psionics, Part 5
All This And Psionic Spam: Examining Psionics, Part 4 of 5	The Value Of Information: Examining Psionics, Part 3 of 5	'How Hard Can It Be?' - Skill Checks under the microscope	Jolting The Status Quo	The Anatomy Of Evil: What Makes a Good Villain?
We All Have Our Roles To Play: A Functional Perspective on Personality Archetypes, Part 1	The Critical Threshold: A brief debate on the Merits of Extreme Results	It's Not Like Shooting Sushi In A Barrel: A Personalized Productivity Focus For Game Prep	Sophisticated Links: Degrees Of Separation in RPGs. Image by Clix.	The Frozen Lands: A Science-Fiction Campaign Premise

So let’s talk about this article and its keywords. It’s all about writing, so:

quill, pen, words, type, typewriter, typing

If I don’t find the right illustration, or something close enough for me to modify it into what I need/want, then I’ll think again, looking for more keywords. You can see at the top of this article the one that I chose! It came from the very first search term, which doesn’t always happen. I added the blue framing “flashes” to complete it.

Obviously, I don’t upload the graphic until I work on the editing and layout, but I will define any captions and hyperlinks in advance. Here, for example, is a full definition from a recent post:

PicR: LPnosunm_s.jpg
Upload: LPnosunm
Caption: The Lunar Prospector was one of the science highlights of 1998. Click on the thumbnail for a larger image.

It specifies that I am to upload both a large-sized image and a thumbnail, and that the thumbnail is to be displayed on the right-hand side of the text and link to the full-sized image.

Editing & Layout

The last thing that I do when writing an article is to upload both it and all the graphics, review it once again, check the layout – I hate orphaned lines because of illustration size, so I do a lot of work on that sort of niggling layout issue – finish converting URLs to hyperlinks, and so on.

“I normally don’t change the text much at this point,” it says in my rough outline of this section. Yeah, right. That’s both true and utterly deceptive. Most of the text won’t change, but occasionally there will be a rephrasing to help the visual flow of text, and there will almost always be something that I rewrite in the 11th hour.

I don’t have to worry about bolding or italics in the editing because I normally incorporate such emphasis in the actual writing process. Similarly, I do most of the work of creating lists, blockquotes, and any html at the time. I do as much as possible in advance because the text editor provided by the blog installation is a difficult to use.

The final touches are administrative – categories and tags. And that’s the procedure I employ to write an article.