Player Involvement

Recently I felt a bit put upon to create adventure for my players. My players, it seemed to me, just wanted to have some fun and wanted me to provide something. I can do this, I told them, I can provide them all of the railroad game sessions they want. It may have been a bit heavy handed of me to put it all on them, as it is not all on them. However, I did want to point out that it is their responsibility to insure that I don't run a railroad game. One of my players was unclear where the line was. He didn't want to be filling in all of the details on what was coming up in the game. I told him that this wasn't what I was talking about. I don't need the adventure to be spelled out for me to run it for them. I just need ideas. I don't want the players to get used to showing up and having me unload my ideas on them alone.

I challenged my players to think of some goals that their characters could pursue. This is the least I would hope for, that the character would be real enough to the player to invest ideas into. They know enough about my world from having played in it for several years now. They can help me keep the game personal by making their characters personal.

Aside from goals there is a lot that a player can provide in terms of ideas. One player said that his character is on the run from the law in a particular kingdom, for unknowingly deflowering a princess. I created three weeks of excitement due to that one line of backstory. Another character wanted to find a sword that was of particular importance to her church. While it took some time for the party to come around to look for it, it was always a possible line of adventure that I could work with.

What I like the least is when the party goes into a tavern and looks for jobs. I go to lengths to point out only the least interesting jobs imaginable, like babysitting and building fences. A party used to getting gold pieces for their work, won't settle for silver. Another thing I like the least is when I ask a player what they want in life for their character, and they respond with getting XP and gold - and nothing more. That kind of desire is best fed with railroad games, and as railroad games lead to shorter overall campaign life, you'll have more time to figure out how to get your players involved.

Paid D&D Writing

The Puritan: Creativity and D&D
For ‘The Town Crier’ section, The Puritan magazine is looking for pieces on the theme of Dungeons & Dragons, its influence on personal creativity, art, and pop culture. They will publish a mix of personal essays, critiques, and creative explorations. Some topics to consider are:
– How D&D has influenced your creativity, shaped your writing, or affected your life around the table
-D&D’s appearances in TV shows, movies, and books, and how its representation has changed over time
-Why the RPG has had such a noticeable resurgence in popular culture
-The ways that D&D has influenced authors and artists
-How the game can be a safe space for collaborative storytelling
-The intimacy of creating and playing campaign characters
-The role of Dungeon Master as a creator/referee/gatekeeper
The Puritan magazine also publishes work year-round – interviews, essays, reviews, fiction, and poetry.
Deadline: 15 October 2019
Length: About 1,000 words
Pay: CAD25 for the D&D feature; CAD25/poem, CAD100/review or interview, CAD150/fiction, and CAD200/essay for the print magazine

Fudgers Anonymous

Wouldn't it be nice if DM's and Players alike could go to a local place on Tuesday nights to get help for their addiction to fudging die rolls? It seems to me that it is an addiction. I have made every protestation against fudging dice and yet I find that I am regularly tempted. Rolling publicly, (so that everyone could see your dice) does help, but you could always lie about your plusses. "Yes, I rolled a 5, but I am plus 13, so I hit." Lying and cheating are one in the same and are too easy. We need help. I need help. Let's open a forum and decide on a proper 12 steps. Admit first, that you have a problem.

Treat It Like It's Great

"Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy — meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do..." - The Apostle Paul

The point is, Dungeons & Dragons is worth it. It is the greatest game in the world by far and on par with only the best group social activities that are available. Imagine that, what you do around that table on campaign day is as good as anything else. Go to the movies with friends? I'd rather play D&D. Go to the bar and watch the ball game? I'd rather play D&D. Go bowling? Go picnic? Stay home and party? Just give me the game! It is great.
Just because D&D is great in itself doesn't mean that there isn't notable responsibility attached to it. If it isn't great in your experience, then make it great. Reliable content is out there if you need help. It is worth the work, and we all have to do it. A football player only works for a couple of months during the season. But in the off-season, he still works. He has to keep his body in shape. He has to see to any injuries he has. He has to stay up on technology and what's going on in his sport. As a DM in this noble, great and fun activity, you've got to make it great, if it isn't.
The hurdle, I suggest, is that most of the D&D stuff out there from decades of production, is fluff, harmful, and unnecessary to a healthy campaign. That is true for the majority of the advice as well. Therefore, it is important to have a very good idea of what your game is or will be. Be as idealistic as you can be. Do not settle for vague notions of "I just want the game to be fun." The football player does not say that, without knowing all that goes into it. He may very well have experienced greatness, and greatness is fun.
D&D is great and it is worthy. Do the work.

Let's Make Fun of Geeks

I have had a couple of players who openly discuss their lack of lives. If you commit to play D&D then you obviously have no life. Surely there is some other life that you should be living. If your life was better, then you wouldn't have to condone to play D&D every week.

I know these players never really think about what they are saying. These are good people. They do good things. I enjoy their company. In fact, when my best friend says "I have no life" when he considers playing in an additional game, I think that he is joking. He is making fun of what used to be the external, stereotypical point of view of geeks.

It is only now that I am calling these players out. If they truly think that playing D&D is an unworthy commitment or worse, then they cannot think much of people who happily commit to playing. Furthermore, it speaks of someone who has low self-respect, as in, "Yes, I play this game and therefore I have no life." Respect yourself, dammit.

This is only one instance of several where such thoughtless, disrespectful words have been spoken at my table. It's not funny anymore.

Occult Book List

Back when I was a Call of Cthulhu player, I took it pretty seriously. I also had a ton of time to waste. For that game, I compiled a list of occult books seen throughout history. I also listed a few books whose actual, original existence is not certain. This list only goes up to 1930, I believe, as I only wanted books that might be available in my 1920's game. Feel free to use this information:

5 Years Ago Today - had issues.

I had my book reviewed by twelve of my beloved beta-readers yesterday. My friends and I sat in a room together and discussed the likes and dislikes in my 354 pages. The heavy, three-hour session tore at my book, and my mind. This, plus four hours of D&D, left me exhausted and a bit twitchy. But the review was so good. One of the major issues brought up, one that plagued my book, was the series of detached scenes. My characters would go someplace, endure a hardship, survive it, and be healed of it. Then they would go on to repeat the cycle, again and again. Different places, different hardships, but in the end of each, the characters would reset, be like they were at the start. What about the emotional or physical consequences for the serious difficulties they endured? Lacking. This is where the influence of D&D has tainted my story. It is a common theme in D&D to have the party of characters go out and kill some evil monsters, take their stuff, then go back to town to heal up and sell the stuff. That’s the scene that regularly gets replayed in the game. It seems that role-playing out any lasting emotional scar is undesirable for players. As healing-up leaves no physical damage at all to a character’s body, all of the stains of past battles can be forgotten. Everything resets, except, perhaps, that the party is slightly improved. In my book, the difficulties get worse and worse, and the party rarely wins, but they have no negative consequence. Their desire seems to be to simply do the right thing. Where is the desperation? Where is the ticking time-bomb? I must work on solutions to this in my book, and, dare I say it, in my game. Another major problem found was the confused, or the lack of, genre. The story is a Dark-Medieval-Fantasy-Romance with touches of eroticism. Where is that section in your local bookstore? Now I understand that I can have aspects of all of these in my story and call it Fantasy, or Romance, but I have gone to lengths to focus on each aspect separate from the over-all story. They should blend together. A ten page section detailing a sex scene should not stand alone from the prior, twelve page battle scene, or the six page dialog about magic that comes after. I’ve got to get away from the short-story mentality that I have held on to. I do not want a collection of short stories. I am used to receiving ten page critiques. People love my action and my characters, ten pages at a time. The whole story at once, however, gave people negative feelings about my characters, some things just didn’t add up. My characters say and do some pretty cool things, besides just fall in love. However, they have few goals and/or fears. They want to fight evil but what about personal, tangible goals? These are not apparent in any of my characters. This seems an easier fix but a desperately needed one. The fact is that my book was not destroyed by the review. The story is sound. It needs a major tweaking, but not a re-write. Nothing that needs to be fixed is fatal to the rest. I am gloriously happy about that.

A Note for New Players

More things to consider: We meet every Saturday, and I want a commitment of at least 40 of 52 Sats a year. There will be misses, obviously, but if more than 2 Sats a month is not likely to work out, then mine is not the game for you. We generally meet 5 to 10 PM.
2nd. We communicate via a Facebook message board, a single platform where logistical, real-life issues can be dealt with (For example, my friend was hosting at his house, his oven broke down so we had to find another way to cook pre-game pizzas.)
3rd. We have been playing consistently since 2012, mostly in this one campaign world of mine. Just know that there are not a lot of restarts or focused, modular expeditions.
Finally, (as in I can't think of what else to say) I have a packet of rule changes and additional material, stuff you may or may not like. I can email it to you if you wish, although it is due to be re-written. So, there you go. We have room for one player. You can see some of my philosophy on my blog. Oh, one more thing, no boos please.

Metal Dice Sale

I am selling several sets of metal RPG dice on EBAY. You can really knock some things down with these suckers.

2 Types Of Players

Another fleeting idea of mine: I have players who want to press the limits when it comes to character creation. One wanted to have a neat, special and by all means different ability for their character. He wanted something that set his character apart from what the others could have. Along the same lines, another player created a story-line in her head and wanted a D&D character that could fit that story-line. She wanted a Half-Ogre, and continually pressed me to explore the limits in making one. Weather or not I should have granted these desires is beyond the point.

The other type of player is the one who just wants to know the rules regarding character creation. They tend to favor exactly what the book says, and can even feel stress when the DM is Interpreting things. They tend to create characters within established boundaries. They are no less creative, mind you, but they have a different starting point.

So, to what point should the DM interfere?

Tiresome Yet Significant Thought of the Day

It is not for the DM to create a story for the players to play in. The players and the DM are creating the story together. The DM needs to be able to respond positively to player interests even if such interests are well outside of the DM's story concept. This is not groundbreaking. It's just harder for a child's game company to market to.

It's New So It Must Be Good

Something I am sure you will all be thrilled about is that there is a new video game coming out based on the classic role-playing game called Runequest. Chaosium was advertising it today.

Another exciting thing that I am sure we were all waiting with baited breath for is that the Tiefling race is now available on Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO).

I'm sure efforts like this will help us all remember how great role-playing games are.

Zak

Questions have been posed to Zak in the past about weather or not is is appropriate to support (or buy from) people who do bad things or have bad beliefs (racism was the example given.) He effectively said no. That doesn't seem much of a stretch, especially today where wearing blackface decades ago is enough to get you fired today (doing a perceived bad thing = losing support). So, I have seen enough to make me not want to buy or publicly praise Zak Sabbath products. To be fair, someone who publicly claims to be an anarchist-satanist, who praises the work of Marx is also probably on my no-buy list. So now will I be tared a right-wing extremist? I digress.

The question that comes up now: is the fact that I have been inspired by Zak's ideas regarding gaming also a bad thing? Am I a worse person because I thought some of his very specific thoughts were good? No. In fact I dare say that I Could continue to be inspired by his game creativity. Vladimir Lenin, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Kim Jong-il, Adolf Hitler all very much loved dogs. I love dogs. Therefore it is possible and probable that I will agree with very specific thoughts of the very, very, very worst people. The worst part about this is that these worst peoples are also in position to do things like build dog sanctuaries... Which I might want to financially support.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could spot narcissists and sociopaths at first glance? Then we could put them away quickly, maybe even help them. As a past victim of the worst of these, I am tempted to say yes--end their influence before it begins. The problem with that is that giving up fundamental trust sucks. I don't want to question the good folks at the Burger King who might have spit on my food. Inquisitions are unenlightened.

A Theoretical Question

If you had the relationship that you have with the other players in your game, but didn't have the game, would it be enough? It might be easy to say, "Well, there would just be something else to take the place of the game." I suggest to you that that is not true. Gaming is that special. It is interesting to consider what those relationships would look like without the game.

My first long-term gaming group broke up after ten years of gaming, because all that there was, was the game. I did next to nothing with those people outside the game. Such was my interest in having a game, I used them. They used me. When their interests moved away from gaming, the relationships with me ended. I had never experienced anything so stark, but none of it was healthy. Understand, that it is better to seek the healthy.

Now, I ask more of my players and of myself. I engage with these people on other subjects of similar interests. I eat meals with them and their families. I go to non-game events with them. I have much, much more of a friendship with these people than I did with my first group. I emphatically state that having a solid, well-rounded relationship with your others players only makes for a better game. Seems obvious but when the game is all there is, it is not enough.

Follow-up question: is this the problem with computer games?

A Quibble

It would be nice to see more accurate depictions of the historical Crusades and the people who fought them. We get depictions like the enclosed image from "Throne: Kingdom at War" regularly. In fact, this image is more accurate than most. What we are shown here looks like a late 11th early 12th century crusader knight. The helmet looks right, with the unfortunately flat top. The mail is called chainmail, which is redundant, and it doesn't seem to cover the hands as it should. Not that uniforms of the time were necessarily uniform in design, the cross on the surcoat would normally be over on the left. The sword would actually be steal, not just iron, and it would be on the other side. Spurs? Well, the jury is still out on those - for Crusaders of this period. What is missing is the spear, which would be the main weapon. I wonder if we can assume that this is a knight or even a Templar who would ride a horse into a fight? I do appreciate that we do not see plate armor anywhere, as is often depicted in our modern depictions of the 1st Crusade.