The Depth of Zero Charisma

I AM Scott Wiedemeyer!!

I've talked about Zero Charisma before, and if you want my short review of this movie: Zero Charisma is an amazingly insightful piece of cinema with a powerful message about how the popular media has co-opted the nerd culture and D&D in particular.

People have mixed feelings about ZC and its message but I think that is a part of the problem that ZC itself addresses, or else is the opinion of those that miss the larger message of the film. Watching the film again last night (it can still be rented on Amazon and with a 73% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 6.3 stars overall it is likely to be available for awhile at least) gave me pause to consider not just the overt message of the film: "what is a real nerd?"; but the deeper issue of my growing dissatisfaction with the roleplaying industry, culture and the current state of D&D.

In a WIRED article shortly after the film was released the idea that ZC didn't do nerds any favors was addressed. This idea was fronted by an io9 writer but very adequately addressed by the film's writer Andrew Matthews who said,

“Despite many good examples, it can still be hard to convince people that a untraditional main character will resonate with audiences. Just because someone is nether heroic nor a typical everyman doesn’t mean you can’t sympathize with his struggles.” (source)

The "untraditional main character" that Matthews is talking about here is Scott Wiedermeyer. And yes, despite Scott's many faults, I do identify with him and deeply sympathize with his troubles. I recall first telling people about ZC and highly recommending it, only to receive somewhat cold and distant responses to the film and its message. I also began to realize the the reason was rooted in today's modern game and geek culture as opposed to what the movie itself represents. In short, the way you react to this film has a lot to do with what kind of "nerd" or "geek" you are. ZC pretty quickly separates the hipster nerd stylist from those of us like Sam Eidson's character, feel shut out from the new wave herd.

"A Dungeons & Dragons player since junior high, Matthews wanted Zero Charisma to depict how gamer life has changed as geek culture has become more mainstream. “These hobbies that used to require so much commitment and sacrifices to pursue are now so much easier. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. The more people that are playing, the more players you can find. But for people like Scott – and myself on some level – it just kind of seems unfair. This is our world, our refuge that kind of belonged only to us. Once it goes mainstream it’s not special anymore.” (source)

Anyone who watched the movie cannot mistake that it is not Scott that is the ass, it is Miles. Miles, the charismatic hipster that not only takes over Scott's nerddom but monopolizes it for his own commercial purposes. The dichotomy here of course, is that all the people hanging out at Miles party where Scott makes his last stand, all love geek culture. The new geek culture, that is. They love comics, spec fic movies, literature, video games, and the shiny new D&D that's on the market today. They are the geek chic of today.

In fact that is the name of Miles' website: GeekChic.Com. A not so subtle play on the way old school nerd culture has been coopted today to become the new chic, the new cool. Andrews couldn't be much more clear in the statement his film seems to be making; he is clearly pointing to what is what in the nerd experience today.

This disparity is even played out when Scott goes to meet the creator of fantasy gaming himself: Gary Goran, the film's stand in for Gary Gygax. Nerds of old revered Gygax, and it is no surprise in Scott's gradual unhinging that he runs to his icon to find the respite and affirmation he knows in his heart to be true. Dakin Matthews does a marvelous job looking and acting the part of Gary for a bit part, especially because the scene is so important. That Gygax himself could be irascible and ornery is no secret and we see this played out by Dakin. The dialogue is great here, and when our anti-hero Scott gets the chance to talk with Gary directly the film delivers another poignant truth. Even Gary sold us out. Many of us felt cheated when Gary Gygax so frequently pointed out that D&D "was just a game", as Goran says to Scott in the film. Scott knows it is more than that, as do we all who loved and lived the game. Sometimes we consoled ourselves that Gygax "had to say that" because of the Satanic Panic and the public outcry that it was teaching occultism, and a threat to the moral Christian foundation of society. He was delivering a canned PR statement, that had to be it. But in our hearts we felt and feel just like Scott does in this scene.

"My players say I'm taking the game too seriously...I mean is it really possible for a game master to take the game too seriously?" (Scott to Gary at Wizard's Tower) See, it wasn't really a case of Scott's players who brought this up. Though they did say it, they were parroting Miles who pointed out, just like Gary, that it's "supposed to be fun". "It's just a game." Well, **** you Mr. Goran and **** you Miles! The game is more than that, and in the moment we need you to back us up you abandon us.

You see, this is the central message of the movie, seemingly confirmed by Andrew Matthews himself, that the game has become "not special" anymore. It has become the cool in thing everybody does, and they only do it for fun, as an idle pastime, which means nothing more to them than the next Avengers movie, the next release of HALO, or the next version of the iPhone. Scott is not lamenting the loss of his gaming group (though there certainly is that aspect, others do a better job of addressing that gaming woe). Scott is lamenting the loss of his life, his meaning, his world.

Could Scott become less self centered? Sure a bit; and could he become more forgiving, absolutely. And he does by movie's end. In fact some have decried the ending of the movie, as not really showing the resolution they wanted--Scott's gaming group back together. I personally find the ending entirely appropriate to the movie's purpose. Scott grew, but he also stayed true to who he was and what gaming meant to him. There he is working in a rest home, still supporting and spending time with his Nana, and playing his games with those who really need them-the lost and the the forgotten. I personally like to think Scott probably does still game with his old friends. But that is not the point, the point is deeper and truer to what gaming was back in the day than what it has become today.

Without getting too personal, I find the movie very true to life. And I also find that it sheds some light on my increasing dissatisfaction with and the lack of connection to the current gaming industry. I find the culture at Wizbro and Paizo largely made up of Miles-like hipster groups and not representative of me, my gaming, or my experience. They do not seem to embrace gaming like I do, nor does it mean the same things to them. I may be wrong. It may very well mean the exact same things, but it is not at all apparent on the surface.

Gaming meant something to me rooted in a need for meaning and purpose and personal identity that nothing else quite seemed to provide. I was entranced from the first moment I encountered it. Something deep and profound opened within me, something that led me along paths I would not have taken otherwise and which in large part define me today. I felt like Scott felt, and though I might not have been as big a jerk about it as Scott sometimes was, I totally get why he did what he did.

What I guess I'm trying to say is that if you don't "get" this movie, you don't get me.

Gaming Confusion

An unfinished thought I still find relevant today.

So, I've been struggling a bit lately. I've been in a fairly deep creation process and it has turned into a sort of soul searching journey through what I really want in gaming. Funny that, as I really thought I knew. That was the whole idea of creating the game in the first place. I suppose some might wonder why I would even try in the current climate when there are so many games already, and so many clones which recreate the old school ethos, and the old games themselves are so readily available. Why undertake something that just crowds the field? Others might understand completely. Isn't this this the real purpose of the OSR after all? To not only allow the old games a place, but to allow each of us to assemble the kind of game we wanted to play--the way we played back in the good old days. much of the energy and impetus of the OSR kept up its head of steam as old school aficionados deconstructed every aspect of the systems we loved  in order to build up the kinds of mods we wanted to see on the old school chassis we preferred. Then we could do what we never could in the old days--publish our own stuff for those very games. Now that we are all "satisfied" with the games we play and our freedom to do with them what we will. Even if we had the freedom to play the way we wanted back in the day, as we argued here recently, we certainly couldn't sell our own products for them freely. So thus the OSR has and to some degree continues to offer us gaming satisfaction.

Why then am I unable to feel at peace with my gaming? Why is 5e so unsatisfying? Why can't I just embrace the OSR and play the games everyone else is? And if the game or community doesn't quite exist the way I wish, then why can't I quite bring myself to create the game I want to find?

Letter to Mike Mearls

A letter to Mike Mearls I never sent. Funny how so much of what I mentioned is now a part of 5e...

Hi Mr. Mearls,

Thanks for taking the time to read my note. ; I know you're very busy. I'm a long time gamer that started with 1e back in 1981. Though I've played 3.5 and 4e they are not really my style of play. I'm an old school gamer mostly playing C&C, but have played OSRIC when unable to get a 1e game together.

I'll be honest I've been a bit dismayed by the current directions of D&D, but I'm not really here to write about all that. I, like many others, are wondering about the rumors that Wizards is contemplating a 5e release. This is, as always, exciting. Especially since I hope against hope that maybe this edition will be closer to the way I like to play.

So I thought I would take advantage of the opportunity to express my hopes for a 5th edition. I copy to you here my most recent blog post regarding these hopes and recommendations. I know I'm but one voice in the wilderness, but I do know that there are others who think similarly to me. So without further ado, my post:

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What Wizards of the Coast Could do to Win me Back With 5e

Well, not win me back, but win me over. They never really won me. They seduced me for a time, but I have always abandoned their editions after short stints of trying them out. But I can't help but wonder what would 5e have to look and play like for me to become a devoted 5e player and WoTC Customer? This is what I came up with:

Go Rules Light: The core of the system needs to be light and flexible. It would have to resemble 0e and B/X more than 1e and certainly lots more than 3.5 or 4e. This includes several things,

Stick with iconic classes: Fighter, Cleric, Thief, Magic User. Make PC creation about character development, not adding lists of skills, proficiencies, powers, feats, prestige classes and blah blah, blah. Other games have already done that. But about _real_ character development. About history, background, parentage, personality etc. etc. Lead the way into letting people know that D&D is about telling stories not building the perfect program of a character. Skills are linked with class, you don't need to list them. If a fighter should be able to do it he can do it. Have it roleplayed or maybe linked to an ability check.

Simple, but elegant and flexible, Vancian Magic. There's some room for play here imo. Magic could be more dangerous and wierd ala Swords & Sorcery. In most Swords and Sorcery literature magical items are powerful and dangerous, not useful little trinkets. And spellwork can cost you your sanity, your life or your soul. You could incorporate some optional rules to make magic more complex, and perhaps more flexible, especially in magical combat.

Fast, streamlined combat as a base, with options for making it more complex. GURPS is sort of the icon for complex combat. But GURPS gives a basic combat option. I'm not saying to make the combat like GURPS, but maybe build two combat rule sets. Basic combat and advanced or full combat rules. So people who like all the crunch can add it in, but don't have to. And I'm NOT talking about PC options or power builds. I'm talking about combat rules like crits, movement, dodging, parrying, grappling, etc. etc.

Stick With The Core Rules!

PHB, DMG, MM only!

New supplements should be adventures, worlds, novels, magazines (please bring back Dragon in print!), articles, comics, minis, myth & legends, homages to Appendix N style literature, art, posters, T-Shirts, retrospectives on past supplements, etc. etc. But NOT a freakin new core rulebook addition every blasted 15 minutes!!!!!

Take Submissions! What a novel idea!! Instead of paying 60k/yr + bennies to five or six writers, pay 60k/yr + bennies to a good editor or two and take submissions for material. You save tons of money, involve your fanbase, and still maintain control over content. Nothing gets out without your approval, at least not officially. And heck, look at all the overnight sensations that have cropped up in the OSR. You've got tons of gamers dying to write stuff for games. Pay them $1000 or so a pop and I bet you get all sorts of stuff pouring in.

Keep The Community Alive. Don't ditch Wednesday Night Encounters. Just shift to the new edition. And beef up the RPGA and sponsor more RPGA events. Let some fans run living campaigns sanctioned by the RPGA. They can even be at minimal cost. Allow it on a volunteer basis. Instead of your massively flopping DDO attempt, set up a website that caters to pbp and skype gaming where DMs can run blog-like worlds that gamers can participate in. Don't go MMO--stick with what D&D does best: in-person RPG play, even if people are coming together digitally. It would work like this: A DM volunteers, registers with the RPGA/WoTC and gets set up with a framework site that includes a blog feature, a pbp feature (like a forum), and a skype feature. The skype like feature is a virtual tabletop where all the players log on and can see each other and the interface allows everyone to be seen, maybe has a pc view feature, digital dice roller, mapping tool, etc etc. You could charge monthly fees, and could even offset costs by selling advertising on these sites to third party publishers. These games could be RPGA sanctioned or they could be purely private. Then a group of skype players scattered from all over could actually get together at conventions and the like and played sanctioned games. One of the hardest things for some people is to find people and time to play with. Wednesday Night Encounters has gone a long way to eliminating this and I'll admit that I prefer physically present play; but I am really considering skype play simply because of lack of local players.

I'm telling you, WoTC could be at the cusp of a revolution. Such a change would not only win me over it could win back the gaming world and rise to the top once again. By creating a "Universal D&D" model that is compatible with all the big names of the gaming field: 0e, Basic/Expert, OSRIC, 1e, 2e, Labyrinth Lord, Basic Fantasy, Castles & Crusades, Lamentations of the Flam Princess, BECMI, Dark Dungeons, Delving Deeper, Swords & Wizardry, etc. etc. etc. You open up a new era of gaming. An era where the biggest and most powerful publisher is bringing back in the fan base and returning to its roots. The new game can be a key that unlocks the worlds to all these games and much much more. WoTC owns the D&D name. They might as well use it to reassert itself. Become the D&D that will serve as the true Archon of the hobby it deserves to be. What Wizards does not own is the rules. Only the content. Don't create a new game with new rules, you don't own those either. You own content. Presentation. Play with those factors. Using all of its proprietary material and trademarks D&D can stand apart as the unique and original source from whence all fantasy gaming springs. But at the same time embracing the grassroots passion it has ignited in the hearts of so many.

Imagine a world where the name everyone thinks of when they think of fantasy worlds is Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dark Sun. Use the content you already have! Make the worlds even bigger and better than before. Don't wrench them from their foundations and slap a new rule set on them. What you've done to Forgotten Realms is heinous. You haven't just changed it, you've erased it. Shame on you. And you've completely dropped the second gaming world of all time: Greyhawk. A game IS its world. Yes, we all create our own worlds. But games are often linked thematically and spiritually to the worlds against which they are painted. And yes there can be more than one if they are done in high enough quality. D&D had several. Think of Runquest. RQ did not get played because of its rules but more so because of Glorantha. Glorantha served as a shining beacon to what RQ could be. We need more of that and less rules tinkering. No one else can do this because you own every whit of Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, Mystara, Gamma World, Boot Hill, etc. etc. Reclaim them!! Reclaim them and take us on new journeys within them. You do this and hordes of gamers will flock to the stores to buy your products. Discussions will begin to be again about worlds, races, political intrigues, mysteries, murders, adventures, treasures, heroes and gods. Not rules and playstyles. Please! I beg of you. I long for a world like this once again. A world where magination is the reason we play, not some sort of gaming activism.

It really wouldn't be that hard to do. But that is what it would likely take to win me over to supporting a 5th edition. Anything else won't do. I'm not sure what they have in mind, but it has to get back to its roots. D&D should focus on the content that made it famous, not the rules. Sure implement the new and great stuff in game design that we use today. Fine. But reclaim the game's spirit.

GenCon is August 4th to the 6th. On the 6th at noon WoTC is holding its product announcement sessions. There it will announce what new products players can expect for the coming year. I, like other more respectable names in the gaming industry, fully expect an announcement that 5e is in the making. I guess we'll see. You just might have the chance to bring the gaming community back together again Wizards. You've failed my twice already. Please make the third time a very powerful charm. Please.

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Thanks again for taking the time to listen to my suggestions. I apologize if in any way I have offended. That was not my intention. My blog posts are a bit acerbic at times. But what I truly desire is to help the game be the best it can be.

Sincerely,

Chris Jones aka Sizzaxe

http://classicrpgrealms.blogspot.com

And Now For The Real Story

A long ago post originally written in 2009. Though it was the time of 4e, and me still running the Jr. High gaming club, I think it has a new relevance today in the chic and hipster world of 5e.

So my last entry was meant to be humorous, but may have left a bad taste in some people's mouths. That too was intentional. You see I think we in the gaming world suffer from a few dysfunctionalities. Yes we laud our creativity, our intelligence and even at times revel in our weirdness. The truth however, is that we also carry our share of bestial characteristics that put us down there not much better than barnyard chickens.

I can say this, not only because I have gamed for nigh on 30 years now, but also because I have committed these sins myself, and have to be constantly on guard against them even now.

When I first started gaming I died. Alot. I don't really recall the other players or DMs being mean really. I died, they continued gaming. At worst I was ignored post mortem. It was after all my first few months gaming and one can expect to die some as a newbie.

So it may have been those early pc deaths of mine that colored my first few months in the DM chair. I was to say the least a killer DM par excellence. We spent countless hours going through dungeons at the picnic table behind my house, and the bodies piling up around us as my nefariously overpowered npcs and wickedly unbalanced monsters worked their mayhem upon those who were my friends.

It was less than a year later I found out my erstwhile players would go to one players house and play Space Invaders on Atari. Without me of course. The thing that hurt was that they would pretend I was the little alien that slowly passed across the top of the screen.You got extra points if you shot me down. Ouch.

So I made a few friends unhappy. I changed eventually. But there were other more sinster faults pointed out by those who came into my life later. Faults like excessive competition amongst those who were considered weaker in game play, intelligence, creativity or simply likeability. Our group was exclusive, without really planning to be. We were a clique and it wasn't easy to get in.

A female friend of mine from those old days once called us stuck up when a friend of hers was shunned by our group. She said we had prided ourselveson being so open and accepting in comparison with jocks and preps and stoners; but she claimed we were just as bad. Thing is I don't even recall the kid we supposedly excluded. She called us hypocrites.

Hypocrites?

Yeah, well. It hurt at the time, but you know what they say about the guilty. They taketh the truth to be hard. Later I realized why she said what she did. We were so egalitarian--or so we claimed. Give us your tired of the social status quo, give us your hungry for a place for misfits, give your huddled masses yearning to be free from the tyranny of the "in". In truth we were really no better than anybody else. We were teenagers.

Now some of you at this point may be wondering if I am blaming gaming for such social cliquishness. No--that was due to adolescence. What I am exploring is the form it took that is unique to gaming.

You see, whether you like it or not gaming is a social clique. It is a rather rarified acitivty confined usually to the wierd of mind. Now that's fine--I like it that way. But what is not so good is the exclusive pride that can develop among such a social niche. In the jet set it's the clothes you buy, the stores you shop at, the cologne you wear and whether you fly first class. In the gang it's the lingo you speak and the colors you flash, sometimes your race and often the neighborhood you're in. In gaming, it's often the edition you play, your time in gaming, whether you can speak the lingo, how big and classic your collection of gaming books and if you can quote rules by book and page number.

But it's not just that. With any social group there are critera you often have to become familiar with in order to properly fit in. What's worse are the intangibles.

Gamers can be a competitive lot. Not only that they are often very particular about the creative and imaginative ability of those around them. There's got to be a certain cool quality to your geekiness in order to be accepted. That's the thing we have to be aware of--we have to gaurd against this demon if we are to not commit the unpardonable.

Why you ask would such a thing be so bad, and why talk about it on a OS blog? Because we old schoolers are competing against the slick new kid in town. What I have seen of 4e seeks to attract a "cooler" set to gaming. And there is nothing wrong with this inherently. 4e is just seen as being cooler than certain old school games. Old school games are more cerebral and more magical in quality than the very rule bound video game like rpgs that are coming out now.

I've seen this played out with increasing frequency at the adolescent level. There is a startling number of "cool" guys that are playing 4e. These new generation LOTR fans (now that it's cool to like such an awesome movie with great effects and lots of battle) with their shades, low hanging pants and bandannas are presenting a new problem. No geeks allowed.

This simply won't do. And the bad thing is that gaming plays right into their hand. The competetive element of gaming can work as a tool to its own destruction. We all know the game was meant to be a cooperative endeavor between a party of adventurers. But it's all too easy to exclude people with actions, meta and in game jabs, comments and general attitude.

Previously in the ancient days of gaming gone by this was done by those who didn't show enough gaming geekery to fit in. Now, its being used against the very people who kept gaming alive for so long. A war is brewing and its true nature remains to be seen.

Me, I have faith in the magic of gaming. I think it will prevail and sincere narrative,storytelling type deep roleplaying willwin the day. It has already begun to do so amongst the younger gamers I game with. When given a choice most prefer story rich gaming.

D&D 5e Official Alternate Classes

The Classic 4: Fighter, Cleric, Magic-User and Thief

This started with one of my players wanting to play the new Blood Hunter class. I wasn't entirely against it, as frankly I've pretty much embraced most of the official material released for 5e--except of course when I haven't ... But it got me to thinking. What classes would be allowed in our next campaign? I mean we currently have a dual classed Ranger/Mystic and it has worked fairly well. At first it is always a pain because you have to familiarize yourself as DM with the particulars of the new class, but like most of D&D just play it for awhile and it will sort itself out.

One thing I knew I didn't want to do was to extend my goodwill into the land of home-brewed madness available on say D&D wiki or D&D Beyond. The trouble is I've gone out looking for some list of material actually released as unofficial material in say Unearthed Arcana that hadn't made it into a rule-book yet, but that did at least come from that source. It was hard to find. In fact if anyone has seen one please point me to it. So this is my unofficial attempt, as it were, to list in one place the unofficial material on D&D Classes. Not options, there are tons of those and many of them made it into Xanathar's Guide or other places. This is for actual classes.

The Unofficial Classes (From WoTC) for 5e

The Artificer

The BloodHunter

The Mystic

And that my friends is it. Yep. I have searched fairly high and low and actual separate classes that have come out of the WoTC design team are these three. And none have made it into official rule-books. The BloodHunter is on D&D Beyond as a possible class separate from other home-brews but the other two are unofficial play-test material on UA only. And I actually like this a lot. 

One of the things 3.5 did wrong was the vast proliferation of classes from the head company itself. This is a mistake in my opinion. I prefer the 1e/2e approach of base classes, the 4 by 8 approach of the four base classes Fighter, Thief, Cleric and Magic User and the expanded classes of Barbarian, Ranger, Paladin, Bard, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Monk. Now the proliferation occurs where it should occur: within those classes itself. The archetypes, most frequently called options, are where the expansions occur. This I have no problem with. I also have no problem with the three limited classes above. If my players want to use these additional classes or any option from official sources in the base 4 x 8 group I am perfectly fine with it. What I am not too keen on is the multiplication of home-brew classes out there. Let me correct that--I have no real problem with the actual creation of such classes, but I am not okay opening my campaign up to them. If you want to play an ParaElemental Beastlord, well let's find a way you can do this within the existing class structure.

I could tackle options next, but I think I am more particular about races. Optional races will probably be my next topic, but I'll have to see. Until then, happy gaming!

[caveat lector: the Mystic was actually revised from a previous Mystic incarnation, I have posted the most recent version. The Ranger also had a variant offered in UA, but I skipped it since it really isn't a different class.And yes, I do know that the Thief was not one of the original D&D classes, it was added as an optional class in the supplements.]

Golem Death Trap Room -- A Playtest

The party had explored the entire upper level of the Slaver's Stockade. Things had gotten quite weird the further along they went, with more and more sinister clues that the giants were involved. Nefarious purposes seemed to be coming from multiple directions, but what seemed lacking was any evidence of where the slavers escaped to. Carefully backtracking their path they re-inspected one suspiciously angled hallway and lo and behold a secret door!

And behind that secret door a heavy, black, velvet curtain obscured what was beyond. The Ranger sent his magical companion into the room to scout out the environs, and after a tense few minutes the small creature scampered back telling the tale of a strange octagonal room...

The party had entered from the lower right hand corner, the door opening inward into the hallway. The room is made of old, heavy stonework. An identical curtain covered the lower left hand corner (a clue that there is a second secret door leading downward into the dungeon depths below). On the floor in the center of the room is a octagram design etched into the floor and filled with some sort of immovable (and enchanted) metal. But what looms above everything in the 20' high room is a massive metal statue holding an impossible large steel sword. The thing may be an empty suit of impossibly large (9' tall) armor. As the party enters a dim purple light illuminates the area, as if coming from the very air itself. 

Two other things occur as the party enters the room. They hear the secret door behind them close and lock. They also may perceive (DC 16) a hiss coming from the two upper portions of the wall on the left and right. Nothing else will occur yet with this, but a DC 20 perception check will reveal two small holes, one on each wall, at about 7' in height, angled slightly downward and the slight smell of "cave gas" (natural gas or methane). 

This room is designed to be either a death trap or a challenging obstacle the clever party can perhaps foil with minimal damage. If the party avoids stepping onto or into the sigil in the center of the room it will have no effect. But if they purposefully step into it they will find they are trapped within the confines of the symbol they are trapped there. They may move about and attack with ranged attacks outside of the circle, but may not leave. They also will find that a powerful dispel magic effect exists within the confines of the octagram and that only nonmagical attacks will work. The possible exception is that if the person inside the circle has magical missile weapons they will be thrown as a nonmagical device, but will regain their magic once outside the device. In our case the Ranger, who is also a Psion, had the advantage of using psychic attacks with damage other than psychic (acid). 

The other bad thing about being stuck in the center of the device is that it makes you very subject to the two flame traps that are positioned in the upper left and right walls. Every 12 seconds (every two combat rounds) a cone of flame, describe by the red triangles on the map will blast outward doing 3d6 damage for each cone (6d6 inside the octagram). DC 18 Dex save inside the octagram for half damage, DC 12 Dex save for the area in the cone outside the octagram.

The golem will attack at the most advantageous time, but will not willingly enter the dispel magic area. If he does he will immediately be rendered inert (since he is a magical construct) and collapse into immobile helplessness. He will also be unable to move out of the are of effect. Behind the Golem faintly inscribed on the wall are several magical glyphs. A DC 15 Arcana check or a detect magic spell will reveal the command word to inactivate the glyph in the center of the room allowing anyone trapped therein to leave, and removing the dispel magic effect.

Note the command word does not cancel the flame traps, as they are mechanical and triggered by the locking of the first secret door. A DC 20 perception check will reveal the very subtle button device set between two stone blocks by the inside of the lower right secret door. This button unlocks both doors (lower left as well) and shuts off the flame traps. The flame traps have enough for 6 charges (two combat rounds) before being spent. 

Overall the room played out fairly well. The party druid actually cast thorn whip and pulled the Golem into the sigil rendering it inert--but they hadn't figured out that it was a dispel magic zone. They only knew the Ranger couldn't get out after he ran into it. He was still able to use his psionic abilities since they aren't magical. The idea, of course, is that the party figure out the are is a dispel magic zone and use it to get the Golem inside. An added wrinkle could be that flames can recharge the Golem--metal golems are recharged by fire damage--but a DM could rule that the recharge is a magical effect and not able to work in the circle. This didn't matter for my party since they had already found out flame recharge it when the mage cast a firebolt at it. So once it was pulled into the circle they pulled it to the ground below the bulk of the flames. 

The challenge level for such a room is high and will vary depending on your group. But the Iron Golem alone is a CR 16 and the traps are between 7 (flame traps) and 10. The Dispel Magic containment trap is also high, since if you get a spellcaster caught in there, or a PC with a powerful magic item the party has just had their power majorly nerfed, so you could scale it between 8 and 12 depending. For a party of 7 at roughly 8th level I would say this was a hard encounter to just below deadly, depending on how they play it. It literally could be a death trap if they aren't smart and coordinated with their efforts. 

As far as where to put the room, I like it as a hidden area that must be overcome in order to get to the next level or major milestone. Not necessarily the big boss, but it would work great as a Red Herring if you are using the 5 room dungeon design process (which is called the trick or setback in the link). Although it can just as easily be run as a guardian if you would like with some tweaks. For us it worked great as the hidden "A-ha! There it is!!" room which enabled passage to the second level of the dungeon, and the escape route for the slaves. 

Real D&D

Okay, let's face it. If we had the chance most of us would step through the magical gateway into a real D&D world.

Or would we?

I have often played this thought experiment over and over again with myself, and as is usually the case, fantasy is much more appealing than reality. Even the reality of fantasy world made real. The first obstacle is general fitness to even be considered a capable adventurer, and the second is the training to be anything more than a liability.

This little daydream is really nothing more than that. But it's one I think bears fruit for gamers for a number of reasons. It also helps elucidate some of the reasoning behind old school D&D. You see the original game had players roll 3d6 in order for your stats. In fact the DM actually rolled them, but that changed early on. The idea here is that you are randomly inheriting a character born into the world, by and large average by the 3d6 bell curve. This simulates reality in our world, where most people end up being more or less average within a certain range. in other words not particularly exceptional. And if they were exceptional they weren't exceptional in more than one or maybe two areas. This is life.

These rather normal people simply chose to become adventurers. This premise implies a number of facts about the whole idea of fantasy adventure. That you could be normal and go out and have an adventure. The other premise of the game is that by taking a class, you were only slightly better than average in some set of skills--that of a fighter, a cleric, a magic user or a thief. And this was assumed to be due to a lengthy apprenticeship in those arts from at least age 10 or 12 on. Starting ages for humans were listed in the DMG as

• Clerics           = 19 yrs    = 7 to 9 yr apprenticeship
• Fighters         = 16 yrs    = 4 to 6 yr apprenticeship
• Magic Users  = 26 yrs    = 14 to 16 yr apprenticeship
• Thieves          = 19 yrs    = 7 to 9 yr apprenticeship

And in that time based on character class training 

Clerics learn to fight reasonably well, to turn undead, and to cast one spell--and in some version not even this until second level.

Fighters learn to fight well and use a variety of weapons and armor.

Magic Users learn the basics of magic and to cast one spell, and perhaps a few cantrips (in UA).

Thieves learn simple self defense and the rudiments of their craft but except for climbing walls are successful less than a third of the time. 

In other words, even adventurers, though slightly better than than zero level humans in some skills, are pretty average, and progress slowly through the ranks of their class to become heroes gradually better than a commoner. And commoners fight as well as almost any class at first level, except for fighters, and some don't improve beyond this until 6th level!

This is a far cry from what we are used to in D&D post 2000, where you are not just imagining what it would be like to be an adventurer, but you are allowed to dream big and be a powerful hero from the first moment the game starts. And heaven help the commoner who would try and defeat you, and DMs start to measure commoners by a whole new yardstick:

But I'm not here to talk about power creep or the value of playing an RPG where you start as a superhero or a slightly above average joe. To each his own and all that. 

What these early assumptions did for us, was make travelling to a fantasy world as ourselves a believable dream. And I mean ourselves as in our skinny, pot bellied, bad backed, asthmatic, pimply faced, flat footed selves and actually standing a chance at surviving! Becuase that is what our characters did. We may have a a 5 Dex and a 6 Con, but we identified with tha! We may not have liked it all that much, since in our mind Beaurigaard the Brave was a musclebound Olympic level warrior, but we really knew he was just a grunt with clear weaknesses--even though his strength might be 15. And what it communicated to us was that the important thing was how we played Beau based on our ability to think and strategize and use those strengths and even his weaknesses to his advantage. And moreover, what we realized was that even though we weren't as strong as Beau the fighter in real life were weren't as clumsy as he and maybe not even as sickly. In other words, if we were smart and careful and built up our skills we too might be able to be an adventurer and not only survive but perhaps surthrive in a fantasy world!

This made the dream that much more believable and that much more fun. 

Exploring the Underworld: A 5e Experience

Not being one to let gray grow on an idea, I took my own advice last session and we spent the entire session in primarily exploratory play. It worked well with the storyline so far, since the last retreat the party made to recoup after the fight with the Ogres and Trolls gave the Slavers a good 8 hour lead on them. I figured it took four hours to clear the slaves out and another four hours on the road, gave them a good head start.

If you've never run the Slaver Series each module makes it very clear that the Slave Lords and their Network, which I have worked into the Lord's Alliance, are very crafty and cunning. They are shrewd and ruthless assassins and thieves and will not hesitate to take advantage when it presents itself. Well in several failed frontal assaults they Lords have lost to the party each time. Thus this last time they realized it was better to leave the adventurers trapped in the stockade apparently pursuing them into the dungeons underneath, when in actuality they had already vacated the caves through exit 39 (see below).

I also decided they would leave all the traps activated and a few more, as well as summon several nasty beasties to be left behind with the other natural denizens of the cave to deter and slow down the party. In the spirit of the Mythic Underworld I also redesigned the map--I don't have the map with me right now, but I'll try and remember to post it later--to include portions off map connected to the deeper and darker Underworld.

The idea here is that what we are talking about is a whole other world under the earth--not exactly like the UnderDark, which serves a different purpose--that is or may be or eventually will creep its way into any region under the earth, no matter how near or far. I used the Cave regions primarily (in the NW quadrant) and area 17 as my primary infiltration points of the beginning of cancerous growths, or old festering wounds of evil that were never quite healed and kept from abscessing into the main dungeon.

Essentially my thinking was that the Slave Lords and the Drow, when they took over the stockade and rebuilt the fort in and amongst the ruins of the original keep, they found that the dungeon had become infected with nether regions of the Underworld. The Cave regions, in fact, of the Upper NE quadrant had always been connected to things deeper, darker and more sinister. However, the Drow and the Slave Lords had walled off those portions to keep them in check as they did their business. And nothing says "open me" to a group of XP hungry adventurers like a large thick iron door, crossed with chains and padlocked, hung with a hastily scrawled sign reading "Under NO circumstances is this door to be opened!"

But keeping out the chaos when one is so close to it is like trying to hold back a lava flow from hell, or perhaps more aptly poisonous gas through a window screen. It's gonna get in. But this brings up an important point about the Underworld. Those who traffic in evil, and especially those who choose to execute their dark deeds in places beneath the surface of the earth and away from the light of day begin to become all too comfortable with the malign and twisted influence of Chaos. They are used to reality feeling warped, diseased and dangerous. They become a part of the disease themselves and seek out its deleterious influence to further their own aberrant schemes.

So it was that my adventurers entered the portion of the castle that was not rebuilt by the Slavers, but the older more ancient and shadowy stone portion of the ruins that led downwards into the dungeons below. Now, remember, that the Slavers had left with the slaves, leaving the Adventurers to deal with the traps, puzzles and denizens they had left behind; in addition to whatever might have crawled out of the now unlocked, unchained and open doors which had barred the dark from dungeon below the fort. So immediately the castle seems to take on an abandoned, silent for ominous feel.

First they tackle a complicated series of doors previously used to dispose of slaves and "drop" them into cages below. Now the area is magically trapped with a high level magical sleep spell. The creepy words on the door "Somnus Loductor" (Latin for Sleep Inductor and used as a magical glyph to anchor the enchantment now on the area). However, a comprehend languages having translated the words, the adventurers falsely assumed that this was some elaborate method to "anesthetize" slaves before transport. I won't bore you with a play by play, but suffice it to say it led to a good half hour of intense and exciting play as they worked their way through and past this nefarious trap.

The next exploratory phase involved the party in a strange and somewhat creepy section of the dungeon where an escaped slave and his two female charges were hiding in the walls. The escapees constructed an elaborate haunting hoax in this section of the dungeon (this is a part of the original module) which led to a scary confrontation in which the party accidentally kills all three of the poor escaped souls hiding behind the walls. The ethical dilemma and argument this caused was brilliant and offered an excellent example of alignment based roleplay among the party.

The point is there was technically no combat in all three and half hours of play, and the party had a blast working their way through this very interesting and challenging portion of the dungeon. Atmosphere was thick, tension was high, interest was keen and all in all it was one of the best sessions we've had in awhile. Several of the players were commenting about the castle as if it were a foe in and of itself "I am beginning to hate this place!" and "What is this freakin castle trying to do to us?!" and one suggestion that they actually excavate a section themselves and drop it into their own base of operations back in Phandalin.

All of which I point out to support the notion success when the dungeon begins to take on the tone of a Mythic Underworld and exploration, critical thinking, roleplay and immersion in the setting begins to rise to the top. I had mentioned last time that my hope is to minimize combat frequency, increase combat deadliness and play more with exploration and interaction with the setting and its denizens. Adventurers get the feeling that they aren't just on a military style mission, but that they are exploring a very dangerous and insidious place that is somehow out to get them! The very heart of Dungeon as a Mythic Underworld.

Thoughts on "The Dungeon as Mythic Underworld"

An Excellent Example of Mythic Underworld from Hydra Cooperative

I found something that inspired me. To be honest, I had first heard about it when I read Philotomy's Musings back when it was just a web page. I believe it was Philotomy (aka Jason Cone) that first coined the phrase, but he was not its creator as much as its "namer". For the idea of the Dungeon as Mythic Underworld, as Philo makes clear in his writings, really harks back to the way D&D was originally played in the late 780's (my term for the late 70's early 80's). He describes the experience as exploration of a megadungeon that,

"should have a certain amount of verisimilitude and internal consistency, but it is an underworld: a place where the normal laws of reality may not apply, and may be bent, warped, or broken. Not merely an underground site or a lair, not sane, the underworld gnaws on the physical world like some chaotic cancer. It is inimical to men; the dungeon, itself, opposes and obstructs the adventurers brave enough to explore it." (Philotomy's Musings pg 22)

I love this concept for several reasons; but before I enumerate them allow me to share, if I can, a bit of the feel of gaming in this way. I started gaming in 1981 with a group of older guys (I was 12 they were like 13-14) with AD&D. They had learned to play with OD&D + Supplements, but we used the 1e hardbacks exclusively when I played. I recall several salient moments in my early play which highlighted the over the top gonzo weirdness of D&D, going through modules like White Plume Mountain and Expedition to Barrier Peaks particularly. The general oddness and sci-fantasy "fun" made one believe literally anything was possible. D&D wasn't the classical medieval high fantasy game we think of today. Rather it was a strange brew of Lovecraftian menace, Moorcockish chaos and the Dunsanian bizarre. Of course none of us could have described it that way at the time--that simply was D&D.

What was also really clear is that the guys I was playing with simply made up most of it as we went along. This last part is what I'd like to highlight most clearly--we made stuff up as we played. Mostly it was the DM, but players were just as zany and hairbrained as any half mad dungeonmaster unleashing the craziness of his own twisted imagination upon his hapless players. To say the modules were a guide, is putting it mildly. They were more like fuzzy suggestions of some ideas you could use with this map. At least that's the way things were for the first few years. This style of play is actually very conducive to "Dungeon as Mythic Underworld" if you're comfortable improvising and imagining on the fly. It is not the only way this has to be done, but it certainly helps.

I have a personal belief that this is the way that early games went with Gygax, Arneson and the others as well. Proof of this can be had in the papers that have been shared online of the original Castle Greyhawk and Blackmoor adventures--and the reason why they went unpublished for so long. Their  campaign materials consisted of maps and notes of sessions made just before and often as they happened. Putting them together in some kind of coherent order was almost impossible unless the DMs themselves did it, and even then they often couldn't do it. The fact is that it is hard to capture what really happened at the table when it may have had less than 2% to do with what you hastily scrawled in your prep session.

Dave Arneson is still renowned as a DM par excellence, and yet when they tried to create the Blackmoor supplement the writers and editors were so frustrated with his notes they had to rewrite most of it, and he was never satisfied with the finished product. It didn't live up to his vision of the campaign, and in fact nothing they tried to produce probably could have. Dave was better live than in Memorex. Most of the magic and the connections and depth of his adventures and campaigns were in Dave's head--not in his notes. And even if he had written them down, and he had, noone could quite make them come alive like Dave. Take, for example, the Arneson papers that were bequeathed upon his death. A literal van load of paper stuffed boxes and stacks and reams of papers and notebooks that were sort of symbolic of Dave's creative mind. It was the way he gamed and the way he wrote. Noone yet has been able to produce anything usable from them. Yet even Gygax lauded Arneson as a better DM than he himself was.

Now, obviously the game changed. Much of what Gary wrote did make it into reasonably organized print. However, even today the PHB, and DMG are criticized as poorly organized, baroque, and horribly indexed examples of how to not write a game book. Irregardless of the fact that these were the first books of their kind, and a vast improvement over the original three LBBs in terms of organization, and readability, they are indeed reflective of a style of gaming that was prevalent in the day. It was the beginning of a direction that would lead to the tightly written, more rules oriented, games of today. Even the early modules, mostly tournament reprints designed to be well organized for the tournaments in question, were sparse and not overly detailed. Often rooms are briefly described with a note of a monster, stats and treasure or left completely empty.

Filling in the lines, the motives, the details, were held to be the province of the DM themselves. In point of fact, Gary and the early designers all wrote into the first three books and the supplements that the point of the game was to do the imagining yourself, write the adventures, create the worlds, take the few rules we have written and "imagine the hell out of it!" Such was the way in which the early games were meant to be played. It was a surprise that players wanted more printed material, especially modules and it was only after how lucrative they realized such products could be that they started churning more and more out and eventually changed the approach to a "right" way to play D&D (c.f. Dragon Magazine circa iss. 76 and onward). All of this can be uncovered and confirmed in some of the histories written, interviews given and the excellent video casts given by Tim Kask and others.

It doesn't mean it was the right way to play, or that other ways were somehow wrong. I'm not saying that. As Tim Kask himself says "If you're having fun, you're doing it right." The point here is to give you a framework against which to understand, to grok, the idea of Dungeon as Mythic Underworld. It isn't just rooted in a style of dungeon design it is rooted in a style of play.

A "Megadungeon" whatever you might define that as, is rarely a finished product. And not only because it is generally considered to be infinite, but rather because it is simply too big to detail beyond reason. And reason dictates a style of detail that doesn't go much beyond

1. Entryway: four large columns stand in the center room, cobwebs, large spider.
2. Cloak room: 8 rotting pegs line the north and south wall, pile of motheaten cloaks are on floor
3. Empty
4. Confused rust monster HP 29
5. Storeroom: rots grubs in grain barrels
6. 10' spiked pit trap center of hall

So for example, these brief descriptions are designed to act as markers for what could be used, and elaborated upon as the DM sees fit. Running as is would be a bit dry, so the DM spices it up as she goes weaving together the environment represented by the above descriptions, the players' actions and the unfolding results of their actions.

But how do you turn a series of encounters like this into an actually Mythic Underworld? Assuming the descriptions above are part of a megadungeon or a portion of the MU (Mythic Underworld) it could go something like this.

The columns actually have series of lights in them, mutlicolored, that flash on and off at seemingly random intervals. A light on one column is burnt out and appears to be able to be depressed. The reason for this is innocuous, they are left over signal lights from a technologically advanced race that used to inhabit the region at one time. When you push on the one button it sizzles slightly and flickers briefly. As the characters are no doubt fiddling with lights the spider will drop on them from the webs above gaining surprise. Dangling in the spider web is the remains of an old half rusted cyborg. He at first appears like a human sized warrior in plate armor. His human half is desiccated, long ago drained of blood and fluids, but with a sufficient intelligence check they can get the robotic part working partly. His head will come to life, a red light faintly glowing where his one robotic eye would be. If they wait long enough the cyborg will begin to respond to questions, but his universal translator is broken and a character will have to cast comprehend languages to understand it. He may serve as a useful guide through portions of the dungeon, but if brought to within 100' of the central command jewel it will become hostile and seek to kill the party with its remaining laser eyes--though they are weak now and only do 3d6 damage per hit. In no case can the cyborg move and will have to be carried and continually nursed into running order.

And you get the idea ... that doesn't even begin to introduce the polymorphed rust monster who used to be an apprentice to a dark sorcerer who now makes his abode in the dungeon--hence his confusion. The point here is, and I just made all this up now, is that the weirdness comes into play as you move along. And so does the developing story of both the dungeon and the campaign.

Believe me, I have tried writing all this out ahead of time. In fact I just spend all day last Sunday prepping for an encounter in my current adventure and ended up using none of it. I mean zero. The party did something else, and I ended up deciding that the smart thing for the remaining bad guys and their leaders to do was to cut and run. But honestly, it all went great, just not as my well written and prepped 12 pages were expecting.

I end up making most of it up as we go out of the barest of bones of a plan and the actions and decisions that occur as we go. Of course every session doesn't have to be gonzo weird, but knowing that none of it has to make perfectly logical sense, relives a ton of pressure from a harried DM. The idea of a Dungeon World designed on these principles is a great help in this regard. The problem is that it is just a dungeon. What we really need is an approach that includes the upper and the lower worlds. Enter Faerie. That is what inspired me about the old post from Monsters and Manuals linked to above. That the Wilderness as a Mythic land of Faerie is every bit as cool and useful as the underworld concept. One could argue that this is what the designers had in mind when they wrote The UnderWorld & Wilderness Adventures of the OD&D set and the Expert Book of the Basic line. Both books were focused not just on dungeons but wild untamed magical wilderness areas as well. And the Mythic world of Chaos a la Poul Anderson's Three Hearts series was just as much about the untamed wilds above as the dark labyrinthine recesses under the ground were.

But let's talk about the reason I really love this. The idea that here be monsters, beyond the maps and domains of men, drives the adventure fantasy of the game and echos the weirdness in our own reality. What I mean by this is that for monsters, magic and wonder of fantasy to stay magical, wonderful and frightening it must remain unpredictable, essentially unknowable, and dangerous. Having spent a large portion of academic and armchair study into evidence of the unseen, the paranormal, the mythic and the supernatural in our world, one thing is clear. That when these things happen everyday normal reality takes a hike. Part of the reason these experiences thrill and interest us is precisely because they are strange. And I'm not just talking about a unicorn happening to walk out of the woods. We're like, "Oh my goodness look at that strange animal I've never seen before!" And after a while if I see it enough its just a horse with a horn on its head.

True fantasy and magic are not just something we normally don't expect to see. True magic, unreal experiences are exceptional because they bring with them, a sense of unreality; a feeling that the fabric of the universe being pulled a part at the seams, and you might just be going a little bit mad. These things, are what what makes the Mythic mythic. It is what the definition of fantasy is in my mind. If we live in a world that is as natural and mechanistic as our seems to be, but where goblins are real and some really smart people can do things with magic--sort of alike an undiscovered science--then the wonder begins to lose its power. Goblins are just another biological species, and can be dealt with as rationally as any other potentially dangerous species--like a bear or a wolf or a lion. In fact we really don't need them to define fantasy--an extended family of twisted serial killers would work just as well, or a widespread epidemic of rabid dogs. If magic is just another science that anyone with enough smarts can learn then we should use chemistry and physics to replicate it. My brother was a chem major for a while in pre-med and also an avid D&D player and I recall him telling me that just about any spell D&D mentions can be in some way replicated with science and technology.

So what makes magic magic? In a word, weirdness. True magic and magical beings are strange, unpredictable, ultimately unknowable, and though we can learn some rules of thumbs and general guidelines for dealing with it, they never quite make sense, and are apt to change at a moment's notice. Magic doesn't follow the normal everyday laws and rules of reality. Now, don't get me wrong. Like Philotomy pointed out, they (MUs) should have a certain amount of verisimilitude and internal consistency. But they should also be bent, warped and chaotic--cancers gnawing at the world.

This essential ethos was built into D&D in the early days in the essential dichotomy between the lands of Chaos and the Lands of Law. And therein we have the heart of the conflict of the world of D&D. The lands of men with their castles, kingdoms, baronies and villages are the Lands of Law; and the outer wilds, the dark depths beneath are the sprawling realms of Chaos. The two constantly at war one with another, Rule and Misrule locked in eternal battle. And it is the brave, bold and foolhardy D&D adventurer that dares venture down and out into the realms where Chaos breathes and strange magics twist the world to its maniacal whims. These are the few souls who know something of the strange beauty and terrifying nightmare that is the Mythic UnderWorld and the Odd Courts of Faerie.

This is at the heart of Old School D&D and the style of DMing that thrived within it. Something I am going to be incorporating more and more into my own 5e games.

5e Challenge Ratings

Let's face it, the 5e characters in my game right now kick some serious ogre butt.

Ow! You kicked my great big ogre butt!

I mean in our last encounter through a series of unfortunate events our players, of which there are six eighth level and one seventh level, kicked the collective butts of two beefed up Trolls, four Ogres with very sizable HP allotments, 7 gnolls, a gnoll pack lord and a Fang of Yeenoghu and 8 hobgoblins, a hobgoblin captain and a hobgoblin warlord all in the midst of a a fireball induced fire hazard. According to Kobold fight club this is a deadly encounter that exceeds the exp recommendations for deadly by 19,150 experience points (this is for adjusted experience). I'll admit, the bard did fall in combat with the hobgoblins, and was hit while at zero for an automatic crit and two failed death saves, but was quickly revivified by the cleric. They spent most of their spell slots and did come into the battle at full HP and spell slots.

All of this goes to reinforce the fact that, in my opinion, the combat building mechanism for 5e is broken. I have seen different approaches which all pretty much break down into various approaches on tweaking character levels vs challenge ratings. I am going to suggest something similar in this post, but much simpler.

Sizzaxe's 5e Combat Encounter Building Rule of Thumb

• Match CR levels for character levels 1 for 1
• A character at level 1 should fight a CR 1 monster for a "fair fight"
• Etc. for each level higher. 
• Encounters lower than this match would be considered hard for the monsters
• Encounters higher than this match would be considered hard for the characters

So, for my group I should plan encounters for 6 CR 8 level critters and 1 CR level 7 critter. In other words, My group might fight 6 Hezrou

And a Drow Mage

Which Kobold Fight Club says is 38,300 experience points beyond the threshold for deadly--exactly double the encounter they actually fought in the last session. 

Too much? Well, let me opine for a moment. Ever since 4e (and to some extent 3.5 had already made the shift, but less so than 4e), D&D became about combat. The game was designed to highlight the tactical and strategic game of outplaying your opponents on the field of battle. To a certain extent this was neat and indeed could be said to hark back to D&D's wargame roots. And arguably D&D has always been about combat, as the majority of the "rules" in the game have been designed around resolving, enhancing and expanding the combat component of the game.

However, I would be quick to add, and argue vehemently for my point, that D&D has always been about more than combat. Yes, combat has always been a critical and exciting part of the game--irreplaceable even. I mean, come on, there is something to be said for combat in a game that at its heart is about killing things and taking their stuff. But even in that statement we see a whole other part of the game--taking their stuff--which has been left behind or at least overlooked in the modern game. experience isn't really awarded for treasure in modern games so there's that. 

But it isn't just that, its that D&D is about amazing, wonderful, and weird encounters and interactions. It loses the amazing if all we are doing is substituting a different skin for the foe and slugging it out. Combat should be deadly and players cautious about taking that route. When you do this is shifts the focus of the game. I think the CR build of 5e is partially at least designed around making characters more able to have lots of combats and enjoy that part of the game. Cool. But what if we enjoy or at least want to experience more of the other part of the game?

I have seen other tweakers (bad name for gamers who like to play with the rules) suggest alternate experience models, like treasure only when PCs spend gold won on adventures, others who suggest models based on the three pillars and giving experience for each one in greater or lesser degrees. Heck even WoTC via the Unearthed Arcana column put out an optional rules suggestion to this effect. Those in this last camp have begun to argue that even though the game is supposed to be based on the three pillars of Combat, Exploration and Roleplay/Social Interaction the game itself does not support such an approach as there are only mechanics for combat. Heaven help us if the official game writes mechanics beyond what are already there to adjudicate those, but that's for another post.

But me? I think I am going to go simple. 1 CR per PC level as a sort of default for encounters. Gonna be tough, and its gonna be fun. I expect more creative thinking, more exploration, and more social interaction as a result. I'll let you know how it goes. 

I Have No Idea What I'm Doing

So ... new look? Yeah well, sort of. Truthfully, I have no idea what I am doing. The last six entries I had planned for the blog have been relegated to eternal draft-land, with no idea of when an actual post might appear. Part of the reason for this is my own confusion about where to take the blog and my future online gaming presence.

I recently went through a rather self reflective period in my gaming due to a disagreement in my game group involving rules and editions. I contemplated trying to return to what I love to do--go back to simply gaming old school 1e. I also contemplated taking a break from gaming altogether. I thought about breaking my group up. I even thought about writing my own game--again. In the end I settled on the fact that right now I'm playing 5e. My group is growing in more ways than just number of players at the table. The gamers I am, playing with are all invested in 5e and say they are enjoying themselves. With that in mind, I decided I was just going to give myself over to playing 5e, and playing it well.

I have been running a rather rules-less version of the game with me making up rules on the fly based on my previous knowledge of 1e, but that was no longer cutting the mustard. Time to really start to play this game the way it was designed. Yes, it's a pretty flexible game to begin with and even me making rulings hadn't actually broken anything. But I had not truly given the game itself a fair shake. It was time to do so, and with my current group it was the right thing to do.

So where did that leave my blog? Where did that leave my theorizing and philosophizing which are decidedly seated in an old school ethos. Was I to try and "OSR" the 5e rules? Hadn;t that been what I had been unsatisfactorily trying to do for the past two or three years? I was not going to run that treadmill again. No, even though I am old school gamer it was time to admit I was not successfully playing "old school".

I can't say I won't play an old school edition in the future. Hopefully I will. Hopefully the hobby will return to its golden age more so than it has. But for now, it was time to push the pause button on trying to figure D&D out and instead start trying to figure D&D Next out. I was making myself unhappy with the game and with my gaming. Moreover my players were starting to pick up on it. This is not a new phenomena. It happened with 2e; with 3.5 & PF and then with 4e. Now it was happening with Next. I had never really given myself over to any of the new editions. I sort of played with the appearance of their rules, but underneath it was some sort of old school melange of what I recalled and ruled on the fly. I have now decided to really play 5e. Play it as if this was the game I was playing and not just the book sitting on the table.

But that doesn't help me much with this blog. Is the uncharted space into which I now sail my RPG starship (hence the new design graphic) best served by this blog, or a redesign of this blog, or a new venue entirely? I have a Facebook page I use for my local gaming group and could focus my efforts solely on that outlet. But, truthfully, I have sort of grown cold on the Facebook bug. I've limited my interaction there to one or two visits a month now and pared down my contacts to only a hundred or so and those are mostly family. I could create a new 5e focused blog, a new blog for my gaming interests generally, or a different vehicle altogether. To tell you the truth I'm a little confused as to what to do. I've even considered dropping the gaming blog and focusing on one of my other interests.

All this to say, who knows what comes next. I would say stay tuned, but then nothing may be on this channel for some time so ...

Room to Move

So in my redesign process of A2, I thought I would just limit the fort and dungeon portions to the tournament sections. However, some of the non-tournament sections are important on the story development end of the module, which is pretty important to work in. So I fairly quickly decided to leave in most of the extra bits. I may cut the madman's quarters out, but he could be fun if played right.

I am also beefing encounters up. The fort makes heavy use of hobgoblins and gnolls, but most of these patrols and bands, both as written in the dungeon itself and in the wandering monster tables are far too soft for my party. I have a party of seven fairly healthy 7th level PCs with a decent selection of magic items and spells. Challenging them has at times proven difficult. I have found that higher level monsters alone or in small numbers are not nearly as powerful as I would like them to be. Therefore, I have beefed up both my humanoids in number and strength as well as relying on more powerful groups such as trolls--it is the in TrollBark after all.

But even this has not been my biggest frustration. It used to be, but I am gradually getting a handle on 5e mechanics and design theory to mitigate nerfed encounters. No, what I am really struggle with is room. Room to move and conduct encounters and allow for more than a simple frontal assault in most dungeon environs. We do use minis and a mat for battles and often to guide exploratory sessions. I have always been more of a theater of the mind kind of DM, but as I've mentioned before my players really prefer minis and maps. They have gotten better about mapping on their own, and I usually just draw the immediate relevant environ on the battlemat. But what I've found is that the five foot square is incredibly limiting.

Now, a certain degree of this is due to the fact that we are using miniatures that are based on a five foot square game, and a holdover of 3.5e and certainly 4e that were designed to be played this way. When we played back in the day we naturally assumed that three could travel abreast in a ten foot wide corridor, and even fight as such in certain limited circumstances. We also assumed the ability to move about in combat more freely than five foot spacing rules generally allow. Taking a look at the above map of a 25' x 35' room, it seems very crowded with 3 human sized minis and one large sized mini. Is this realistic? That is a fairly large room by today's standards and yet it seems crowded for even a three person party. Now imagine us playing a seven person party with a wolf companion for the Ranger... Yeah. You get the idea. Again, part of this is the artifact of having minis designed on a base for five foot squares. However, as we go about working out encounters, to the extent that we do use minis, combats seem much less exciting and dynamic than I have been used to in the past.

And take a look at the picture at the top of today's post. Granted it's an artists rendition, but you also get the idea that five feet steps might be a bit too wide if you get my drift. In real life things are apt to get a lot more crowded and dynamic than what the artificial 5 foot grid allows or replicates. for instance, here are some other examples:

One can easily see in both these medieval combat recreations that actual engagement in combat is not a five foot square operation, but a much more chaotic and close quartered affair. However, I think the matter is best illustrated with this video of the Medieval Combat World Championships on boht sides of the coin, take a look and then refer to my analysis:

Okay, notice how the battle begins. We have, for all intents and purposes a rather large dungeon room outlined by the fence. A roughly 50' by 50' enclosure with approximately a dozen knights on each side. As they approach notice the Polish team in red. They are spread out about five feet abreast and there are ten of them almost in a line. As the time and action permits they are spread at about a five foot square pacing, but it doesn't last long. Once combat is engaged everyone is very close, and it is very rough and tumble. Definitely not a five foot pacing. You can sense how spacious the area is when most of the fighters are engaged. At one point you have seven fighters actively battling in a space no larger than a ten by ten foot area. At no time does this 50' x 50' region seem overly crowded.

One more quick example. Let us take the rather medium sized room above of 25' x 35' and consider what kind of spacing we have available. We have a total of 35 squares to work with. If the room has three items of furnishing we are down to 32. If there are 8 in the party we are down to 24. Let us say we have an equal number of foes in the room to the party (if we are designing a combat challenge) we are now down to 16 unoccupied spaces. That seems like sufficient, but you start having players moving around as well as monsters in an effort to engage and be strategic things start to seem very crowded and limited. When in actuality, though such a room is considered crowded, a fight you might have half of the critters in the room bunched up in a 10' x 10' space battling for their lives. And thus seems alot less crowded.

So, what's the solution? Obviously using minis with a base designed for 5 foot grids is not going to easily allow us to implement some kind of a different combat arrangement. We could go with theater of the mind and allow for closer combat and more dynamic actions and thus not feel constrained by the artificiality of the five foot grid. However, minis have their use, and players seem to like them to clarify what the DMs description my not clearly outline, or that their imagination is not quite able to conjure in enough detail.

So I have been thinking about redrawing the adventure maps and increasing the dimensions by say a factor of 1.5. But that makes the space much, much bigger. For instance a 25' x 35' room becomes a roughly 50' x 40' room. But I haven't come up with any more elegant solutions.