The GM as Reluctant Court Jester

I've returned, windswept and rain-sodden and midge-bitten from the extreme North West of Scotland. (Some people go to sunny places in summer. I can never understand this. 7 years of Japanese summers were enough to convince me, if I didn't know it already, that the sun is our Enemy and not to be trusted. I like rain.) So naturally enough I want to write some posts about Scottish Highlands style D&D, because the bleak and empty hilltops, deep dark lochs, and abandoned castles of Skye, Wester Ross and Sutherland would be a perfect place for sandbox D&D.

But first, I want to talk about being a serious and high-minded GM, because the day before the missus and I went away there was a session of a regular Call of Cthulu game I'm involved in, which contained a moment which I think summed up rather nicely something which I've noticed over the years.

Most GMs, I think, are rather high-minded about the games they run. There are plenty of gonzo-style GMs around, of course, so I'd hate to generalise, but I think by and large they tend towards wanting their games to be taken at least somewhat seriously. They spend a lot of time carefully crafting worlds, adventures, NPCs and encounters, toiling often for hours every week to make a deep, meaningful and interesting game session that the players can really be immersed in.

And yet it so rarely ever comes off, because more often than not players just don't have the same investment that the GM has. They don't put in a lot of work outside of gaming sessions, as a rule, and much of the time what they're primarily interested in is their own character, and hanging out with friends and eating lots of fatty foods. This is true of most players and is certainly true of me when I'm a player, not a GM.

Last week during the Call of Cthulu game, we'd just learned that an old arch-enemy of the group had not in fact been killed in a fire (as we thought he had) but had in fact survived. This was quite significant, as it was an NPC we all loved to hate and who had come close to killing all of our characters in days gone by. So the scene was set for some good immersive role playing reactions. One of us, I forget who, blurted out, "He's alive?", with a serious "in-character" expression on his face. To which, on cue, another player immediately murmured "Gordon's alive!?" in a pitch-perfect Brian Blessed impression. Everyone sniggered and the moment was ruined. All that careful build-up was for naught.

Just as the remark was made I glanced at the GM's face and saw writ there the GM's tragedy encapsulated perfectly: caught between having to laugh because although it was a stupid and obvious joke it was executed with such panache, while at the same time having to be disappointed and crushed by the carefully built-up mood being so utterly spoiled, he ended up doing neither. He just looked down, paused for two seconds, and carried on. But I knew that the moment cost him, as it costs all GMs dozens of times every game session, all across the land, and he had felt it like yet another pound of the huge weight which he, like all other GMs, carries John Bunyan-like on his journey through the valley of role playing.

Fighting Fantasy Monday: Fangs of Fury (III)

[I'll be away hiking and camping in the Scottish Highlands until the end of the month-ish, so this is the last update from me for a while. I know posting on this blog has slowed down a lot over the last few months, so I hope after the break I'll come back refreshed and full of energy.]

Back here, we were confronted by a naughty goblin who seems to have mistaken us for an ally and wants to know our regiment. Being a bunch of deceitful scumbags, you decided to bluff and give him a name.

In Zamarra, you've heard stories about the Bonecrusher Battalions so you decide to use that name. The Goblin immediately pulls out a sword and holds it to your throat. 'The Bonecrushers have not landed yet, Coney!' He calls out to one of the soldiers, 'Get the list. I think we have another spy.' The Goblin marches you to a deep earth dug-out as another Goblin arrives clutching a large battered book. He looks at you, then flicks through the pages. The book seems to contain information about King Elidor's knights, squires and nobles. The Goblin shuts the book, disappointed. 'Nobody important, no ransom, kill him.' Do you shout out that what you meant to say was that you want to join the Bonecrushers (turn to 250) or 'admit' that you've deserted from the Citadel garrison (turn to 181)?

Something tells me it's all happening at the zoo

There are some animals which really hog the fantasy-monster-beast limelight. Wolves (werewolves, wolfweres, dire wolves), bears (werebears, cave bears, owl bears), snakes (yuan-ti, medusae), lions (lamia, manticores), eagles (rocs, griffins). Enough with these trite creatures of cliche! Instead, what about:

• Seagulls. Herring gulls and black-backed gulls are mean, noisy, vicious and cocky. They swagger about picking fights and causing trouble. Humans don't scare them - as you'll know if you've ever had one stare you down as you walk past with your shopping in a busy city street. They have sharp, strong beaks and powerful wings. Imagine one eight foot tall and the damage it could do to you. Now imagine a dozen of them.



• Chameleons. Colour-changing lizards with spooky independently moving eyes, eerily smooth movement, and hyper-fast extendable tongues which can grab prey at a distance. Endless patience in ambush. They swallow you alive and let their digestive juices do the rest.



• Walrus. A walrus is big, heavy, fat, and can scare off a polar bear with its turks. A giant walrus would be able to crush you like a flea, and unknowingly capsize a ship in its wake - then gobble up the survivors, floating helpless in the sea, as if they were plankton.

I also think there is mileage in dugongs, beetles, turkeys and ostriches.

D&D is About...

I've been playing some more 'modern' or story gamish games recently - things like Blood & Honour, Unknown Armies and Burning Wheel. One thing you notice about modern games is that they all tend to be 'about' something. They're not just tabletop games that you play to have fun. They're supposed to enable you to explore certain deep human emotional themes. Thus Burning Wheel is 'about' having your beliefs challenged; Blood & Honour is 'about' how obsession with honour leads to tragedy; Unknown Armies is 'about' making sacrifices for the pursuit of knowledge; Changeling: The Lost is 'about' finding onself after personal tragedy. And so on.

I think there's a tendency to contrast this with more trad games like D&D. You find this on both sides of the old school/avant-garde divide, so OD&D grognards poo-poo story games because "it's about the game, not the narrative" and story gamers poo-poo OD&D because it's "incoherent" and doesn't have a goal. Both sides perpetuate a supposed gulf between the two different play styles.

Au contraire. I think D&D is actually 'about' something too, and moreover, it's about something very specific. What it's about is ambition.

What else could it be? PCs begin at 'level 1' and hope to progress upwards to level 9 or 20 or 36. They progress upwards by gathering ever more wealth and doing deeds of derring-do of ever increasing magnitude. They learn new abilities and magic spells. They behave avariciously, whether in terms of wealth, power, or experience, and are never satisfied with what they have. Their goal is almost universally to dominate the world, even if this is usually unspoken, because world domination is implicit in their drive to succeed.

Ambition even seeps into the metagame, because in my experience it's generally only in D&D that you get DMs doing the crazily obsessive worldbuilding which you find all over the blogosphere and which I also engage in with so much gusto. You don't get people DMing Unknown Armies and coming up with the gargantuan folders stuffed full of random encounter tables, maps, random treasure generators, weather and climate charts, new monsters and NPCs, and campaign notes. You don't get the almost megalomaniacal ambition of a true D&D DM to catalogue an entire world in other games. Or, at least, not at all as commonly.

D&D is about ambition, greed, power, and the will to win above all costs.

Fighting Fantasy Monday: (And it's actually Monday!) Fangs of Fury (II)

[I hear there's some sort of celebration in America on the 4th of July. Can't imagine what it is, but I hope my American readership had a nice time.]

It's been a while, but if you cast your mind back you'll remember that, after a very convoluted and contrived back story, we were in a labyrinth trying to decide whether to go right down a tunnel and disobey instructions, or climb over a pile of rubble. The votes were to be a good boy and climb over the rubble like Captain Laski said.

You scramble up the pile of rubble. It moves under you and, suddenly, you see bright sunlight. You scamper up and at once hear gruff voices shouting commands. Just then you slip, and a large warty hand stretches down and helps you up. You stand there blinking in the bright light and see a Goblin smiling at you. Behind him a group of soldiers are pushing a giant battering-ram against the huge outer defences of the Citadel. There is dust and smoke everywhere. You look down to see the rubble move again and the hole you emerged from seal itself. The Goblin shouts at you. "Watch your step! Next time I'll let you get buried! Now, who are you and what regiment are you marked for? I don't see any insignia."

Do you admit that you don't have a regiment (turn to 298) or do you give him a name (turn to 378)?

My So-Called [Gaming] Life

Here's what's going on right now in Noisms Wonderful World of Role Playing (tm). I am:

• Playing in a monthly Call of Cthulu game set in 1920s San Francisco.
• Playing in a monthly d20 Modern game loosely based on Joe Dever's post-apocalyptic gamebooks.
• About to start a monthly Blood & Honor game.
• Planning a Japanese-soldiers-in-China hack of the Cyberpunk 2020 rules.
• Running a WFRP game by email.
  

You'll probably have noticed something: none of this is D&D. This isn't a coincidence. I've recently become so sick of D&D I could puke blood. This is maybe an odd confession, because well over 90% of the entries on this blog have been related to D&D either directly or indirectly. But what can I say? I went through a cycle of massive enthusiasm for Old Beulah this past two years or so, and now I've come out the other side and just want to think about something else. We all go through these stages.

It'll be back, of course. That's the thing about cycles. I predict that in a year or so I'll be chomping at the bit to try to hit Armour Class 0 and save-vs-death magic. But for now, I think D&D and I need a break. Much like Ross and Rachel, except D&D knows that my flirtations with other games will never amount to anything much. That's the beauty of game systems, really - your marriage to one is always open.

The Luck in the Head

Before a combat begins, a player can elect to test his luck. This involves picking a dice - any dice - and rolling. If the number is high (e.g. 4 or more on a d6) he is lucky. If the number is low (e.g. 3 or less on a d6) he is unlucky. He should then roll a d100 and consult the following table, designating an opponent as necessary. If the results make no obvious sense, reroll.

Table of Luck

1. Sunlight. The sun happens to be shining right into his enemy's eyes; for the first round of hand-to-hand combat, the enemy is at -2 to hit. If the player is unlucky, the situation is reversed.
2. Diorrhea. Something the enemy ate that morning disagrees with him. The effort to restrain himself means he's at -1 to hit for the duration of combat. If the player is unlucky, the situation is reversed.
3. Slippery surface. There happens to be something slimy or wet underfoot at the start of combat. The enemy has to roll 1d10; on a roll of 1 he slips and falls prone. If the player is unlucky, the situation is reversed.
4. Daydreaming. The enemy was thinking about something else when combat started. He is last in initiative order for the first round. If the player is unlucky, the situation is reversed.
5. Butter fingers. The enemy loses his grip on his weapon and drops it. If the player is unlucky, the situation is reversed.
6. Flutter flutter. A bird, insect, bat or similar suddenly flaps into the enemy's face, distracting him for a round. If the player is unlucky, the situation is reversed.
7. Happens to the best of us. The enemy gets an attack of the nerves and is paralysed for d3 rounds. If the player is unlucky, the situation is reversed.
8. Migraine. The enemy has a crushing headache and sees flashing lights. He's at -2 to hit for the duration of combat. If the player is unlucky, the situation is reversed.
9. Flu. The enemy is weak and lethargic, and does -2 damage for the duration of the combat. If the player is unlucky, the situation is reversed.
10. Omen. The player has inadvertently performed an action which the enemy interprets as a bad omen. The enemy comes last in initiative order for the first round of combat. If the player is unlucky, the situation is reversed.

I just need to think up 90 more entries. But you get the idea.

Fighting Fantasy Monday: Fangs of Fury (I)

The inaugural Fighting Fantasy Monday ended in ignomony, calumny, misery, futility, and a whole host of other nouns ending in 'y'. Let's redouble our efforts for the mighty Fangs of Fury. I want correct choices this time, people!

First things first, time to roll up our character. I wasn't expecting to have as good scores as last time, but we ended up with:

Skill 11
Stamina 20
Luck 8

Which isn't too bad. To it we can add either a Potion of Skill, a Potion of Strength, or a Potion of Fortune, all of which restore points of skill, stamina or luck, respectively. I hope I'm not out of line in immediately assuming the Potion of Strength is the only one of any worth. We also have 10 gold pieces, 4 black cubes, and a gem box, the meaning of which will become clear shortly...

Introduction

The introduction to Fangs of Fury is obscenely long and pretty daft, but it essentially boils down to this: We live in a kingdom called Zamarra. It is under attack from the ominously named Ostragoth the Grim and his sidekick Jaxartes, who has laid seige to its citadel. This is despite the fact that Zamarra is protected by six giant stone sentinels, who are supposed to breath fire on anything evil which enters the land; the sentinels did not work when Ostragoth's army invaded, because their "living flame" has apparently been extinguished.

This is where we come in: as an ordinary soldier we have been chosen by our Captain, Laski, and the king's chief wizard Astragal to take a special torch, crafted by the Twelve Good Wizards of Zamarra, and thrust it into the base of a great volcano found in the middle of five mountains called the Fangs of Fury. This will re-ignite the flame of the sentinels and allow them to send Ostragoth's horde packing. Sounds simple enough, no?

To protect us from the heat of the volcano we have four black cubes, each of which will absorb one wave of heat before disintegrating. We have also been given a Running Man-esque bracelet which will glow each time Ostragoth's army breaks through a defence line. It will also explode and kill us if Ostragoth succeeds, to prevent us from just legging it, which seems overly suspicious - haven't they heard you never get the choice to just run away in a Fighting Fantasy book?

Without further ado, let's get on with it:

You are taken to the deepest part of the Citadel. Captain Laski and two soldiers march in front of you and the twelve Wizards shuffle along behind you. Astragal looks at you, shakes your hand warmly and wishes you good luck. He then stands back with the others.

Captain Laski orders the soldiers to lift one of the slabs in the chamber. They prise it up to reveal a set of stone steps leading into a tunnel. The Captain then gives you some advice: 'Keep to the left-hand wall. Don't light a torch, you might be seen. And. . . well . . good luck.' You are amazed to hear a good word from your hard-bitten Captain. You check your pack, equipment and the all important Torch hidden in the secret panel of your leather
armour, and step down into the dark hole.

Just then, the ground shakes as another boulder slams into the Citadel walls. You look up. Captain Laski pokes his head into the hole and screams at you, 'And make sure you succeed. I won't have you besmlrching the honour of the Seventh Foot sloggers.' His head disappears and the slab is dropped backdown. You are in complete darkness.

You feel your way along the left side of the wall for about 4oo paces and then you fall over a pile of rubble. You get up to find the tunnel ahead is blocked. You listen carefully and can hear shouting and screaming. You also smell faint whiffs of fresh air. You feel around in the dark and find another smaller tunnel to the right. Your first instinct is to go back but you realize that from here on there is no going back. What do you decide? Do you take the
tunnel to the right (turn to 250) or do you climb the pile of rubble (turn to 118)?

No One Here Really Cares About Us Anyway

This week I've mostly been listening to Everclear's Sparkle and Fade. God knows why; sometimes you just want to hear the songs you loved when you were a teenager before forgetting about them for another five years. (It's still a great album though.)

Anyway, my thesis is that around 99% of gamers started playing when they were between the ages of 11 and 14, and since this is usually the period of your life when you are also seriously starting to get into music, the two - RPGs and music - tend to get linked together in an inextricable way in the mind, so that just as certain smells remind you very strongly of certain incidents in your life, certain songs and albums remind you of gaming and vice versa. Here are mine:

1. Incesticide by Nirvana. We played the hell out of this tape while playing nightly (nightly!) sessions of Cyberpunk 2020 circa 1994, in my friend's attic bedroom. I was never the hugest Nirvana fan, which is weird seeing as I sucked up everything all the other grunge bands had to over, but this one was great. I can still listen to it start to finish even now.

2. Generation Terrorists by THe Manic Street Preachers. My big sister was really into the Manics, so by extension I was too, because I thought (wrongly) that she was cool. There's something about NatWestBarclaysMidlandsLloyds that gets me wanting to roll d20s to this day.

3. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by the Smashing Pumpkins. When you're a kid living in boring suburban Northern England with no money and nothing to do, you need something like this album to show you that somewhere in the world there are people who have ambition to rise above. D&D performs a similar function.

4. OK Computer by Radiohead. This was the biggest album of the 90s, probably, at least in Britain. I remember playing it on cassette over and over again while a friend and I studied Planescape manuals when we should have been revising for our GCSEs; Tony Diterlizzi and Thom Yorke will forever be tied together in my mind.

5. Tiger Bay by Saint Etienne. We used to game in my room when I was about 13, and music from this album could often be heard in the background floating down from my sister's room, which was directly overheard. There is something highly incongruous about listening to Hug My Soul while pretending to be an elf killing a grell, but it was a regular occurrence round my house in the mid 90s.

Fighting Fantasy Monday: Seas of Blood (XVI)

Last time, deep in an underwater cavern, we chose to enter through the slit rather than the back door. I'm sure Pat Robertson would approve. This led us to paragraph 398:

As you swim through the crack, it snaps shut, pinning you tight some twenty fathoms under the sea. The slit is actually the heavily encrusted mouth of a giant clam. The creature holds you fast long enough for the effects of the magic potion you drank to wear off. Your adventure is over.

Yes, you did read that right. I'm sure this sort of crushing unfairness breeds character, or something, but suddenly I'm remembering why I always used to cheat with Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks....

Anyway, on that abrupt note, it seems the adventure is over. It was fun while it lasted. Next week: Scorpion Swamp!