TVWPBABTMPK

One big problem I experience again and again with GMing is managing to genuinely surprise the players. How can you throw them into a real state of confusion and fright, as opposed to just fake, in-character shock? In other words, how do you get around the fact that the players will have read most or all of the supplements for a given game, and are highly unlikely not to have heard of that special trick you have up your sleeve?

To illustrate: a friend once told me a story about a D&D game he was involved in. He and the other players were walking along a road in a forest and came across an old woman apparently caught in a snare, who begged them to help her. They immediately assumed the worst, threw a sack over her head, and beat her to death. And sure enough, it turned out that she had been a wolfwere. The look on the DM's face must have been priceless.

A funny story, but annoying and unrealistic in the extreme, and one that sums up the problem perfectly: the players are suspicious not due to any in-game reason; they are acting and reacting based purely on the supposition that the DM must always be up to something. Verisimilitude goes out of the window. I call it The Verisimilitudinous Wolfwere Problem Brought About By Too Much Player Knowledge, or TVWPBABTMPK, for short.

One way to get around it The Wolfwere Problem to cheat, put on your best poker face, and bluff that no, actually, the wolfwere wasn't a wolfwere at all, and oh look, you guys just killed the local almighty archmage's dear old grandmother... But there's something deeply unsatisfactory about gamey tricks like that - it feels like reloading a save in a PC game - and besides, my poker face has never been good enough to pull it off anyway.

The better solution is to get creative, by playing around with the 'standards' and well and truly messing with your players' expectations. I'll be putting some ideas up tomorrow on how to do this - put your own in the comments, why don't you?

Whoops I did it again...

....I read a 4e thread on rpg.net and ended up in a pointless internet debate. I was doing so well at sticking my head in the sand, but it looks like I've fallen off the wagon. Now there's a mixed metaphor for you if ever there was one.

I just don't get it. I feel like the little boy in The Emperor's New Clothes. Are these people seeing the same thing that I'm seeing? How could it be that our perceptions are so different?

The argument in question is to do with the Rust Monster. I like Rust Monsters; they're one of the very few D&D creatures who can actually generate genuine fear and excitement in players - the others usually being level-draining undead. But there is no Rust Monster anymore: it was decided that destroying armour and weapons wasn't fun and should therefore be cut from the game. (Apparently genuine fear and excitement aren't enjoyable in the brave new world - crazy times.) It constitutes 'screwing players over', you see, because DMs can't be trusted to use Rust Monsters fairly or sensibly, and little Johnny the player will cry because the nasty Rust Monster took away his ickle Vorpal Sword, and he'll run off home and tell mumsy, and that won't be fun, and it will ruin D&D as we know it, or something. That's broadly the argument, as far as I can tell. I'm a little rough on the details - I'm not sure there actually are details. Mike Mearls was ranting about it a while back.

I think what it boils down to is good and bad experiences. I used to game, and have only ever gamed (outside of PBEMs), with genuine friends. Friends do mean and spiteful things to each other sometimes, because it's fun. They also laugh at each other when things go wrong - like if you roll a dice and get a 1, and it means the treasured magic item that you've earned over six months of play has just been destroyed. And you laugh along with them, because it's only a game, and you're enjoying yourself, and you're possibly a little drunk. In our games, 'screwing over the players' was the purpose of the DM - provided of course that he was always fair with it (anyone with any experience of the game can tell immediately, I feel, whether a DM is or isn't being fair). His role was to create the adversity that the players had to overcome - by power, guile, or luck. He had to walk a fine line between too much and too little adversity, but that was the challenge of good DMing.

So that's my perspective - Rust Monsters and other 'screw the players over' monsters add to the fun you can have with your friends. They make the game actually scary, and they have endless potential for point-and-snigger moments. Everyone's a winner.

The only way I can reconcile the anti-Rust Monster view with my very conception of reality, is by reasoning that the people who make it must have had bad experiences in their formative gaming years. Maybe they didn't have friends to game with and had to go to some unfriendly local gaming club, run by capricious bullies who would use every opportunity to make them feel small. Maybe they don't really understand the social rules by which the majority of the human race lives (God knows there are a lot of people like that in D&D-playing circles) and therefore misinterpret good-natured ribbing as genuine nastiness. Maybe they prefer "story games" ("Narrativist play" as I believe the kids are calling it) and think randomly dangerous Rust Monsters mess with the pre-arranged plot too much. Maybe they once had a character who they were really attached to killed by an unlucky dice roll, and they are of the kind of sensitive disposition that takes such things to heart. Maybe they are deeply insecure, and can't stand to lose. Maybe they've only ever played with truly wretched DMs. Maybe they're just wretched players. I have to come up with these summations, because the alternative is just too weird to contemplate: we are actually percieving different things - the Rust Monster and, more broadly, the D&D and the role playing that I see, is not the same, in some strange and fundamental way, to that which they do.

If you're reading this and thinking, "Hey, I think it's GREAT they got rid of Rust Monsters" then please don't interpret my ranting as a personal attack. Some of the 'Maybes' I cited above are perfectly good reasons for not liking such creatures. All I'm saying is: from my standpoint, I don't get it one teeny little bit.

Beautiful, ain't he?

The Fighting Fantasy Cover Monster Bestiary (I)

An occasional series which stats-out and re-imagines the creatures found on Fighting Fantasy book covers.

Number 1: Geck the Warden




Eternally patrolling Wracklaw, the evil arch mage Denistier's keep, is Geck the Warden. An ancient and debauched lizardman, he likes little better than to discover intruders so he can set his panther on them.

The only thing Geck likes better than setting his panther on people, in fact, is eating them. Preferably while they're still alive. He does that with particular relish, crunching bones with his powerful jaws and sucking out the marrow. He's rather stupid and doesn't much like to think. But he makes up for that with sheer meanness: he's like a reptilian tiger shark who Denistier can point at his enemies and then simply let loose. He wears a strange, delicate-looking helmet at all times; in fact it is a Helm of Brilliance, which was given to him as a reward by his evil master.

Geck's panther is called Mouth. Geck lacks the imagination to come up with much better in the way of names, and as Mouth's mouth is the best thing about him, that's what he plumped for.

Geck the Warden

Intelligence: Low (6)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
AC: 3 (1)
Movement: 12 sw 15
HD: 8
THAC0: 13
No. of Attacks: 1
Damage per attack: 5-20
Special Attacks: Mighty Blow (Geck does not use a trident like other lizard kings; instead he uses a machete-like scimitar. If his attack roll is 5 greater than the number required to hit, the attack does double damage.)
Special Defences: None
Magical Items: Geck wears a Helm of Brilliance.
Morale: 16
XP: 975

Mouth the Panther

Intelligence: Semi (4)
Alignment: Neutral
AC: 6
Hit Dice: 4+1
THAC0: 16
No. of Attacks: 3
Damage per Attack: 1-3/1-3/1-8
Special Attacks: Mouth can leap up to 20', gaining two extra attacks from his rear claws (1d4+1)
Special Defences: None
Morale: 14
XP: 420

My Game - Let Me Show You It

Perhaps this is too masturbatory for words, but my PBB (Play by Blog) game is underway. Don't worry - I won't now commence to act like a catpiss guy, blustering you into a corner and not letting you go until you've heard all about his favourite character. I just want to let you know, in as polite a way as possible, that you're welcome to lurk.

Later on I'll inflict a new series of posts on you: the Mighty Fighting Fantasy Cover Monster Bestiary!! (tm).

The Gateway Drug

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings might have influenced me a lot as a kid, but it was the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks that were my real introduction to the wonderful world of sci-fi/fantasy and role playing games in general - the marijauna to 2nd edition AD&D's heroin, as it were. I loved those books, and read them like a true addict - if my local library hadn't had the complete collection for me to borrow from religiously (at a rate of four books every Saturday) there's no doubt I would have been lead to theft and murder in pursuit of the habit. That led me onto the range of (surprisingly quite good) novels, then to the Advanced Fighting Fantasy role playing products, and then my fate was sealed.

The Fighting Fantasy ouevre was pulp at its finest - mad, honest-to-goodness theft and graverobbing of every known trope of fantasy, horror and science-fiction, hacked up and sewn together and then reanimated, Frankenstein-like, into horrible monsters. Their beauty is that you know exactly what you're going to get with them; if you've never read/played any, take a look over this short list of title examples and it'll tell you all you need to know:

• Creature of Havoc
• Deathtrap Dungeon
• Crypt of the Sorcerer
• House of Hell
• Armies of Death
• Island of the Lizard King
• The Keep of the Lich Lord
• Fangs of Fury
• Appointment with F.E.A.R.

See what I mean? I bet you can not only imagine perfectly the tone and broad content of each of those volumes, but can take a pretty good stab at how the stories begin and end - all from the title. There was a real genius to those titles.

I think my favourite one of all was The Forest of Doom, in which...well, I don't need to explain the story, do I? Because you can already guess, I'm sure. It involved a forest full of monsters, mostly - and, needless to say, a healthy dose of DOOM. The best thing about it was the artwork, though. I've searched everywhere for some examples on the internet but couldn't get hold of any - the interior artist's name was apparently Malcolm Barter, but that's as far as I've got. He only did one of the FF books and seems lost to history - one can only hope that, El Greco-like, he will come to be appreciated centuries after he is gone, although somehow I doubt it. I did find the cover, though (done by somebody else):



All good things come to an end and most FF books are now out of print, although another company called Wizards Books has relaunched the series by publishing a few of the old books and some new ones, which needless to say I don't like the look of. (You have to wonder if there wasn't some kind of ethereal synergy going on between that company and Wizards of the Coast: can it really be the case that the wreckers of two of my favourite adolescent pastimes had such similar names purely out of coincidence?)

Anyway, pick up some of the old FF books if you can find them. I'm not sure how popular they were outside of the UK, but they're still worth a read.

Small Minds

Was it childish of me to have named by Dwarven Warlord character on the new D&D facebook application Wankface McCockEnd?

My fingers made me do it.

Pandemonium Cigarettes

Pandemonium is a plane of few pleasures. Something in the very air of the place sews misery, mistrust, madness and sorrow. But the inhabitants of its endless tunnels make do with what small amusements they can come up with. One of those is the Pandemonium Cigarette - which can also be found in some specialist shops in the Lady Ward of Sigil, where the rich wives of the cage's highups are always looking for some new, exotic titilation.

What's special about a Pandemonium Cigarette is that you never know what you're going to get before you light it up. The evil Chaotic Neutral nature of their plane of origin seeps into them somehow. They all look the same - a rather grey, drab bundle of herbs bound in a tight filter. But the results of smoking one are usually different.

Pandemonium Cigarette

Cost: In Pandemonium, 1sp for a dozen. In Sigil, 2gp for six.

Effects: When a character smokes a Pandemonium Cigarette, the DM should roll a d20 and consult the following table. The effects last as long as the cigarette - d4 minutes.

1 - The smoke tastes of strawberries. No additional effect.
2 - The cigarette billows huge amounts of smoke uncontrollably. An area two yards in diameter from the smoker is immediately filled with a thick, cloying gas.
3 - The cigarette burns extremely quickly. The smoker must make a save against dexterity with a +3 modifer to throw away the item before the flame reaches his or her lips. Failure results in loss of a hit point.
4-7 - The cigarette makes a soft, crackling sound in which can be heard the distant sound of chuckling laughter.
8-11 - The cigarette makes a soft, crackling sound in which can be heard the distant moans of a terrified child.
12-15 - The cigarette makes a soft, crackling sound in which can be heard the distant screams of a madman.
16 - The cigarette emits a green glow, which illuminates an area three yards in radius from the smoker.
17 - The cigarette's smoke has a peculiar effect on surrounding members of the opposite sex, whose reaction adjustment to the character is improved by +2.
18 - The cigarette's smoke has a peculiar effect on surrounding members of the opposite sex, whose reaction adjustment to the character is reduced by -2.
19 - The cigarette contains a mild narcotic which reduces the character's attack rolls by -1 for d4 hours, but gives them d3 bonus hit points for the same period.
20 - The cigarette tastes like dung. The smoker must make a saving throw vs. poison or spend two rounds uncontrollably vomiting.

With thanks to Matt for the idea.

I am a fanboi

It can't be said often enough just how wonderful and evocative the artwork for Planescape was. It's a recurring theme in this blog, I know, but what can I say? When you love something this much you just have to talk about it, and anyway, poring over my Planescape collection is sort of homework for my pbp game, right? So I have an excuse, right?

This is my all time favourite. I just want to step through the page and walk into that scene:



You know what I mean?

Not Missing It

Right back when I first started this blog, I made a vow to myself that I wouldn't buy or play 4e D&D. The straw that broke the camel's back, as I put it then, was the fiddling with alignments. But there were a whole host of other reasons too depressing to go into.

A few months on since the game's release and I've kept to my promise. What's surprising, to me, is that it hasn't been at all difficult to keep. I find that I don't give the tiniest, ant-sized shit about the new edition, no longer even bother engage in discussions about its pros and cons, no longer read the threads about it on rpg.net, and generally don't think about it at all. Wizards of the Coast and I have parted ways (though we were never exactly on speaking terms anyway), and it looks like it's for good.

Today out of curiosity I clicked on one of the aforementioned rpg.net threads, for what must be the first time since June, and I was suddenly very glad that I don't have a clue what any of it means. You know how you sometimes overhear, I dunno, Koi carp enthusiasts or tobboganists or stamp collectors discussing their hobby? And the conversation is filled with all this arcane jargon that you don't understand, weird in-jokes that you don't get and don't sound as if they'd be funny even if you did, and obscure references to things that you've never heard of but the participants seem to know implicitly? And you can't imagine what on earth might possess somebody to be interested in that topic enough to develop that level of detailed knowledge about it, and nothing about it is at all attractive to you? And how you're actually happy you don't understand any of it, because if you did, it would mean that you were a strange fanboi of something very odd, and that would be too horrible and awful to contemplate? Well, that's how I feel when reading rpg.net threads about D&D 4e.

Not that there's anything wrong with Koi carp, you understand. Like D&D 4e, I suppose lots of people get a lot of enjoyment out of them. My uncle, for one. Just please, for the love of God, don't sit me down with five Koi carp or D&D 4e enthusiasts at a table at a wedding reception.

A Big Plug

Apologies if this is a non-topic, non-quality blog entry. But Scott managed to pull this off - and anything he can do, I can do too, dammit!

I'm going to run a PBEM Planescape campaign. It'll be done via yahoogroups, which I've been using to run another PBEM game for about three years now, and which has generally been satisfactory. (Also, I'm not good at setting up forums and the like, because of my strong technophobic streak, and having game turns emailed to me is much easier to keep track of than visiting a forum every couple hours.)

And I'm open for applications. Email me if you want in, at jean.delumeau THAT SWIGGLY MARK THING gmail.com.

The Crunch Bit

2nd edition AD&D, as God meant the game to be played, although seeing how little difference there is between 1st and 2nd edition AD&D I might be willing to accept 1st edition classes, magic, and so on with a few tweaks. I'm not big on playing the rules exactly as written, anyway.

I have essentially all the brown complete handbook series, plus various other sourcebooks, so feel free to go hog wild on kits and the like. However, this is going to be a game for Primes - we're going for a Strangers in a Strange Land theme here - so no planar stuff is allowed. (A corollary of this is that people who don't know their Planescape arses from their elbows are more than welcome to join.)

Mechanics-wise, we're going for old school starting-at-level-one 3d6-for-stats. I'll have you make those rolls, and other very important ones, via an online dice roller. Generally in-game rolling will be done by me, though. As Planescape is a tough setting for 1st level characters, I won't enforce stat class restrictions. I will enforce level limits, though, and although I'll be as fair as possible, I won't pull punches regarding character death.

Game wise, I'm big on combat, exploration, swashbuckling action, and weirdness. Angst and emo, not so much. I like character development and I like a good stories but I don't like those things to be predetermined. Ideally, they'll arise during the course of play.

There's no metaplot here or big story arc - the planes are infinite, you've just arrived, and the multiverse is your oyster. Let's see where you end up!

I'd like a party of 6, so get in quickly. I'll choose people mostly on a first come first served basis, although obviously if I know you (via the blogosphere or wherever) it'll be a help. For the time being, just send me an email saying "I want to play!" or words to that effect, and we'll go from there.