The Name of the Game

I originally thought I had until the first week of June to get this out, but some stores have jumped the gun and delivered/shelved early, and the internet is saturated with pirated copies. You know what I'm talking about. Dungeons & Dragons. 4th Edition.

With 4E on the horizon, the choice to switch or stick with 3.x (or even AD&D!) has been brought to many game tables. The argument has been raging for over a year on forums around the world, with each new snippet of official information being released sparking a dozen new debates on each board. Some people praise the mechanics; others condemn its redesigned themes. What's important is to remember that it's a game, and that means it should be about fun.

And that means it's going to be as fun as you let it. After all, finding a stick that looks like a gun can be fun; there aren't many things you can mechanically do with a stick, and its implied "themes" (when it's just a stick) are fairly limited. But it's a tool in your imaginative hands, for doing whatever you want.

Mechanics are hardly the most important thing about a game, unless they're both strict and complex. While chess would be very hard to enjoy if every piece behaved differently under variant rules, that's not the case, so everyone follows fairly similar rules, with negligible changes based on household or tournament. But Dungeons & Dragons is a wholly different animal compared to chess. Any given edition has rules that span volumes of manuals and magazines. D&D is complex. One might argue that it's more cumbersome to stick with an older edition plagued by layers of errata and third-party materials, than it is to start with a fresh set of rules, but that isn't the argument for here, and I don't think that should be the argument for your table, either.

The argument should be, "can we get something fun out of this?" If you can use the rules on Powers, if you like the way the new classes are organized, if you like the thematic elements of the new races and monsters, and your group agrees, it might be a worthwhile investment to get a group copy to pillage for ideas. The same can be said of any other roleplaying game system. Take Shadowrun, for example. Those are some involved rules! But a few of them might appeal to your or your group. While I was in the reality-survival phase of my DMing, my favorite Shadowrun concept was 10HP for all characters, no matter what. Oddly enough, a few D&D players agreed with me about that, and we adapted our rules to accomodate the HP range and played reality-survival-fantasy. (I got sick of that after both playing and running it for a little over a year, and ever since have supported straight-up fantasy, with survival elements for thematic purposes/dramatic situations only.)

One of the biggest complaints (from DMs) seems to be the 6-hour rest, at the end of which all temporary conditions are removed and all HP is restored. Some time after my bout with realism, I more or less began handwaving away whatever held my group back from continuing the adventure. They loved (1) not having to track little details across sessions that were sometimes months apart and (2) having fairly even footing at the beginning of each session. Everyone was always able to participate. Now it's in the rules. My advice if you want to slow down characters' recovery? Don't mess with the HP restoration. Add a "long-term injury" tracker. Maybe treat them like feats. "Shot in the leg" is a speed -2 penalty that lasts until three milestones are passed. "Stabbed in the lungs" is speed -1, CON -2 that lasts until six. I strongly advise against making tables for these things. Write down what injuries you make up so you can be consistent if you use that injury again, but try to improvise based on how the game is flowing. As amusing as it might be to roll a 1, consult the chart, and say, "laser enters eye, exits back of skull," you're going to lose the narrative control and future variety that improvisation provides.

By the way, it's totally an ancient egyptian laser beam in the example above.
(Third bullet in the list.)

Making Mice of Manly Men

In the realms of high fantasy, in lands of limitless possibility, at a fair and fun game table, how do you make the player feel small, and weak, and utterly doomed?

This is where a DM's artistry and knowledge of the group shines through when it comes to delivery, but there are concepts so elemental that they also deliver themselves. Things that undermine party loyalty, cast doubt on everything that anyone does, and force the party to re-evaluate their values and perceptions. A master of such concepts is H. P. Lovecraft, with such stories as "The Colour Out of Space," "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," and "The Dreams in the Witch-House." (Why not include "Call of Cuthulhu," you ask? I see that story as being more of a monster/horror story than a genuinely disturbing mindfuck. Not that it's a bad story, but it doesn't suit my purposes today.)

One problem with suddenly bringing twisted/dark concepts upon your group is that it feels like a retcon more than a planned plot twist, and this means you have to build up to the twist, dropping clues that someone isn't all right in the head, or someone isn't exactly playing on your side of the court, but not to such a degree that the character can't justify themselves until the right moment. Another way to avoid tipping your hand is to simply make the eventual turncoats unreliable or vulnerable - perfect candidates to be taken in by the evil cult or enthralled by the wicked sorceror.

Now an NPC that the players suspected or tolerated has turned on them. They're preparing to draw the battle lines. The coup de grace: the actions of the PCs has been working towards the goals of the villain(s). The destruction of the evil Elder Brain will allow the Hive Mother to capture more thralls and have uncontested control over the local Underdark. Can they side with the Illithid? Can they survive against the Beholders when they can turn all eyes to the party? If they make any bold declarations of taking on both foes, will formerly passive enemies become aggressive? How much of their success was dependent on this secret conflict? How many more questions will your party bring up?

It can be even more subtle than having unwittingly changed the tides of a secret and beneficial war between evil powers - misinformed PCs might have done the villain's dirtywork, eradicating fellow heroes while believing them to be brigands. Worse yet is making the PCs think they've done foul deeds on behalf of the villain, be it through illusion or more misinformation.

Today I give you the Missing Keep concept, a tricks-and-traps/who-dunnit? dungeon that will have most of the play directed by the players. If you're like me, and usually don't regulate non-combat situations with turns, you might want to do so in the Keep if things go beyond simple conversation.

Setup: Getting Into the Missing Keep
The Missing Keep can be any ruined or incomplete structure near the PCs' location. A magic-user in the employ of the villains (or a villain him/herself) has woven an illusion about the place, making it look complete, inhabited, and menacing. This mage may either invite the party to the keep through a thrall or pique their curiosity by seeding rumors in the town. Perhaps a monster under the mage's control will attack and lure the party to the keep. However you do it, they need to be brought inside.

Missing Keep Interior: The Main Hall
A brief, winding corridor leads to the high, open main hall. Bleeding walls and apparent structural instability should set the tone; if anyone tries to turn back, they'll find the door missing. There is no way to break the walls. (Actually, they can demolish the entire building, but if they see a wall, they will think they've touched a wall, and cannot pass through the illusion. For thematic purposes, it's impossible to disbelieve the illusion. You might want to watch the original Star Trek episode, "The Menagerie.")

Within the hall is an image of the mage, with a cage of four children from the local village. Have him make an impossible demand of the party that would also benefit the villains, in exchange for the children, with the threat that they may answer only once. Upon pleading, refusing or attacking, darkness falls upon the hall, the children scream, and the party splits up.

Missing Keep Interior: Individual Cells
Each character will awaken, separately, to four chained goblin minions (they can be kobolds or gibberlings or whatever small monsters you like, but stick to one type, and make them extremely easy to kill). Breaking free of their bonds, they will attack the character. Once slain, reveal secretly to each player that instead of the corpses of goblins on the ground, they see the corpses of children. ("They" being used for gender neutrality, not plurality. Each player will be secretly told this.) When describing the bodies before the entire group or party, they are called goblin corpses. If they interact with or ask more details about the bodies, they're secretly told that they're child corpses.

The doors to the cells are unlocked by keys in the childrens' pockets. They can return to the main hall, where they find the cage open and the children slain; the cells they came from become empty once they leave. After they've discussed what's happened, the image of the mage will appear before them and declare that one of them is a murderer, and that only their death can help them see the way out of his keep. (Emphasis on see! Heh.) The mage isn't lying - an exit will appear if one of them dies. However, it's unlikely anyone will be willing to volunteer, and the players should be clever enough to learn that they all have basically the same information to act on. While the players deliberate, anyone who stands apart or wanders off should be visited by the voice of the mage, offering help. He'll point out tell-tale signs of gore or distress on one of the other characters. Try to do this in a way that factionalizes the party. If you want to throw something vaguely disturbing at them, have the children come back as zombies, singling someone out, perhaps with non-violent moaning and pointing/groping.

Spoiler! The Good Ending
Death isn't the only way out. Even with the mage playing on the party's doubts and fears, it should be possible to reach the conclusion that they killed illusions, or goblins. If they can all agree and declare that none of them killed the children, the mage's image will bow to them and release them. If the mage didn't considerably delay the party from continuing on the main plot, perhaps he made some useful observations.

Alternative: Pairs
If good secrecy can be maintained, you might want to have characters wake up in pairs in the cells, adding a Clue-like alibi dimension to the Missing Keep. If you have an odd-sized group, putting one of them alone could be amusing. Even with an even-sized group, have two people not in a pair could also lead to interesting debate.

Hopefully this little adventure template will add an enjoyably distressing page to their character's lives, but your delivery is key. You could make it feel like a psychological thriller, a suspenseful drama, or even a a wacky comedy like Murder by Death.

However you do it, have fun.

House-ruling

"The D&D game has neither losers nor winners, it has only gamers who relish exercising their imagination... In a sense, the D&D game has no rules, only rule suggestions. No rule is inviolate, particularly if a new or altered rule will encourage creativity and imagination. The important thing is to enjoy the adventure."

Tom Moldvay, 3 December 1980

Tom's words were in the foreward of the second printing of the Basic Set of the D&D game, over 25 years ago. Five years ago, neither they nor words like them graced the Player's Handbook for v3.5 of the game. The rules were introduced as just that: rules. When official sources offered alternatives to the rules they weren't given a separate chapter, they were put in a sidebar and called "variant."

That didn't stop anyone from making "house rules," and that's a testament to the adaptability of the system and the quality of the player base. In fact, with the d20 System Trademark License, generously released by Wizards of the Coast for use by third-party publishers, people published their own "variants," replacing whole systems and offering additional content.

But still, there are people who stubbornly refer to books as the holy word on gaming, and we call those people Rules Lawyers. They don't appreciate Tom's words, or the DM's ability to change rules and rely on a verbal understanding with the players. Their whole world seems to be dependent on the source - the books. Dealing with them is like dealing with a mad cultist; they'd sooner die than look at things in a different light, unless they find their own gaming path to follow.

I am a strong proponent of flexible rules and streamlined gameplay. Complex systems should be abstracted enough that they make sense but aren't unnecessarily involved; I don't mix roleplaying and simulation, and that might show through with some of my future emphasis on theatrics, and fostering conflict for the enrichment of the spirit over pedantic setting knowledge.

Later this week I'll have a promised Conflict or Drama post, but I thought I'd do some DM posturing in the mean time.