Too Important Not to Post

The same can be said for the best D&D. D&D should not reflect pure reality in order to remain a game. Generalizing about armor an weapons among everything else is important in order to keep the game moving. I don't think we need to spend hours role-playing our method of sharpening our fantasy swords in our fantasy worlds. We don't need to describe all the intricacies of bucket design in order for our characters to use a bucket. How much time do we need to dicuss how food tastes every time our party stops for a rest? These things come up rarely for game flavor, but should not be part of every session. Medieval times mixed with monsters and magic is in itself too specific. I don't think all of this needs to be said, and my point can certainly be made with better use of words, but honing the way we describe this game to the un-initiated seems useful.

My Argument

"The best D&D is that which is not escapism."

The Tao of D&D: The Crux

The Tao of D&D: The Crux: I'd like to use the space of a blog post, rather than a comment box, to clarify some matters discussed by ViP under this post .  Starti...

Hiding What You See

As a writer, description is my greatest challenge. While writing dialogs and running action comes pretty naturally to me, something I often hear from my readers is that they cannot “see” the location my characters are in. My words fail to put a clear picture in their minds of what the world looks like. I find this is also true for my D&D experience. My players too often get an un-interesting and un-adorned room in which the adventure happens. Understand that I don’t think I am being lazy by not describing things well, my brain is moving a mile a minute. Descriptions just sometimes don’t make it into the scene. When this happens I am none the wiser because the action and the drama are my strength. I have already passed by the small, oozing fountain or the moss covered, marble stelae.

That said, but not to justify my failings, I have encountered much worse as a player. I have played in a climactic moment, where my party opened the door, only to have the DM ask us what we do. I am sure you have been in this situation dozens of times, where you anxiously open the door expecting to encounter a terrible monster in the next room. We just opened the door, I think we imparted as much to the DM again. His reply was, “No, what do you do?” At that moment, the DM was asking us to act with absolutely no description of what lay ahead. I can still remember how deflated he was when we told him that we look through the now open door into the room. I suggest that the players should not have to ask for any descriptions. I guess there could be circumstances of pitch dark and so forth, but even saying “It’s pitch dark in there” is a description.

Additionally, I have played in slower run games that have also lacked description, although never again to the above standard. A slow game without description might very well be called a boring game. You have to give something.

I imagine the same would be true in a game with too much description, although I’ve never seen such a thing. If everything and every action got painfully detailed descriptions, well, that sounds like a really slow game. So what should be described? Honestly, I am not quite sure.

I think the room an encounter is in, for example should get a few lines of description. The monster or the NPCs therein certainly should. It shouldn’t be a 40’ by 30’ room with four Goblins in it, although you will notice two descriptive words there, the size of the room and the number of Goblins. How much better would it be to say the large, rectangle of a room with crumbling, mud-brick walls contains four squat, blue-skinned humanoids bearing jagged scimitars? I need to work on this.

The Old Game Compared To A Fixed Game

Just real brief: Recently I heard an argument that we should use the original rules in light of a new home brew rule that isn't perfect. This is not about changing rules willy-nilly, or strictly for personal preference. This is about changing broken rules for thought out, even established new rules. Personally, I don't need to compare, and find equivalency between old and new completely unimportant. If I buy a toaster that is broken, only toasts one piece of bread, and I fix it so that it toasts two, then I don't need to regret not having a toaster that toasts one. I need never think of it again. Even if the ideal toaster toasts 4. But, it's down to preference. I, for one, choose to part from much of the original materials, because those books are fouled. I don't trust the makers to be right about producing a good, lasting game experience. No one thinks like Henry Ford did, when they build a car today. In the end, I am not an idealist. I don't think that the core campaign is holy, that it needs to be extra special. Trying new things in campaign is much more practical than in side-game testing. If new stuff doesn't work, end it quickly. Be aware of how stuff IS working, no matter what. Also, everyone should teach themselves what it means to be in and have a good game.  (This isn't for the player who can stop playing in a moment, and never go back to it.  It is much more for people like me, who can't imagine being without it.)

I am so glad that Alexis has a nack for great blogging:

That's more required reading.

To be more inclusive, Disney fires only woman on 'The Mandalorian'

To be more inclusive, Disney fires only woman on 'The Mandalorian': VISTA DEL MAL, CA—In an effort to be more inclusive, Disney has fired Gina Carano, the only female on their hit show 'The Mandlorian'. 'We are a company that believes in diversity and so, when a minority actress says that society isn't inclusive enough, yes, we're going to fire her ass,' Disney s

It Is Easy To Kill The Party

I would like to see how players competing against each other worked in game, but I don’t think it does. How does that competition improve cooperation inside the party? Again I would like for someone to show me how well that works. Perhaps the worlds that people play in are not that dangerous, and so players ‘up the ante’ by competing with themselves? I don’t know. On the other hand I have spoken against competition in D&D before, where players compete against the DM or vice versa. Competing in this greater arena seems like total folly. It suggests to me that the people at the table are young, or acting young.

My context for game is that of adults playing the game, so forgive me if you actually are young and I am sounding critical. Adults shouldn’t use the game to ‘recapture their youths,’ at least not in a long-term, healthy game. The first and best example of this aberrant behavior is the immature DM making the game harder because he or she is upset at what the players are doing. I am not just talking about anger here.

The DM made this ulta-cool adventure, with neat NPCs, fascinating traps and unique bad guys, the lead-up to which being a great story in itself. However, the players don’t want to pursue the leads or engage with the story. This week they would rather do something easy and spontaneous. The DM doesn’t necessarily get angry at this, but is damn-well going to make whatever the players want to do really hard and dangerous. This is what I am talking about. The DM here is not able to step back but has to ramp it up, because the players just are not playing right. They are not doing what the DM wants them to do, and so, they will pay.

Perhaps, alternatively, the DM feels that the players just are not smart enough in a given situation and so deserve to be punished. Now think about that. The DM has taken time to craft something he or she thinks is really clever. The players miss some aspect of the DM’s cleverness. Therefore, the characters deserve whatever negative fate they get. Let’s say in this instance that half of the party is lost. Who here wants to hear the DM go on about how dumb the players were? Who here wants their DM to emphasize the player’s shortcomings, because their thinking didn’t match up to the DM’s? Don’t do that crap.

If the party is low leveled, and an area near their location on the map is full of giant dinosaurs, then the proper thing for the DM to do is to make the dinosaur area sound as dangerous as it surely is. The players would deserve to lose their characters if they decided to fight these massive beasts, all good. But note the difference in thinking. The danger of the situation is made clear by the DM. There is nothing for the players to figure out except the obvious. If the DM was angry at the way his or her players have chosen to play then there is still NO reason to hold back these danger signs. That would be the same as attacking the low-leveled party on the road with an ancient Red Dragon. There is no good place for it in a healthy game.

Now perhaps your game isn’t so healthy. Perhaps your players are playing poorly. I am not talking about bad rolls or even players being disconnected from what’s happening at the table. I am talking about players who have lost the reason to care anymore. I am talking about jaded players, and players who in all honesty would rather be doing something else. These situations are much better handled outside of the game. Talk to players as a group or individually. If someone is going through a hard time then that should be understood, at least by the DM. If there are personality issues between players then that should be handled publically. The game isn’t just for the game. In role-playing, more than in any other kind of game, relationships matter. Arbitrary actions or acts out of frustration or anger need to receive a mature response.

David Prowse: RIP

Here is a picture of him in one of hig greatest masked roles: Doctor Who "The Time Monster" (1972).