Tenkar's Tavern Contest Entry - From Swamplands to Starfields

After exploring The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk and continuing on to Lair of the Mist Men (which are already linked by the titular Mist Men appearing in Jonas Gralk), the brave explorers go back into the swamp to dig up a treasure they discover on a map.  

Around this time, the first lucky star goes missing.  

They encounter The Folk of Osmon in the swamp.  Other stars disappear from the night sky, and the group is drawn to aid the Sea Queen as she claims in dreams that she knows what is making the stars disappear.  

As the group makes its way to the coast, a servant of Bobugbibilz urges them to solve The Croaking Fane, in return for which its master will give them news related to the disappearance of the stars.  

What the party learns from Bobugbibilz’s servants and The Sea Queen Escapes leads them to the Ronti Islands, where they encounter Stars in the Darkness, and either restore their Luck or die trying.

The Folk of Osmon

The Folk of Osmon (Purple Duck Games) is now available.

A mighty civilization once thrived where now only lonely Osmon Mire stretches across the land.  The crumbled and vine-laden ruins of ages-old buildings arise here and there from the reedy mud and water.  The remains of statues and derelict temples adorn low hills rising from the muck.  Fell beasts roam the mire at night and man-like shapes haunt the swamp.  After dark none willingly passes the low hill, with its blood-encrusted altar stone, where the Folk of Osmon are said to sacrifice their victims.

The Campaign Elements series is designed to help judges create persistent campaign worlds, as well as deal with patron quests, divine requests, and the sudden need to “Quest For It”.  Whether it is because you are short on players one evening, or the wizard needs to locate a new spell, the Campaign Elements series has you covered.

Each of these areas is short enough to be played through by most groups in only a single session.  That doesn't mean that the value of the area is limited to a single session – each adventure includes notes on “squeezing it dry”…effectively getting the maximum re-use from your investment.

An adventure for Dungeon Crawl Classics characters across multiple levels.

This Campaign Element is perfectly suitable to drop into Perils of the Sunken City (and the related Sunken City adventures) by Purple Sorcerer Games as a side trek or adventure seed.  

Special thanks to Purple Sorcerer Extraordinare Jon Marr for permission to mention a possible tie-in to the Sunken City in the solicitation text for this product.  

First Review:  http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2013/07/mini-review-folk-of-osmon-dcc-rpg.html

Toronto Game Dates Update

Swag from Goodman Games has arrived.

If you show up for the Saturday, July 20, Bone Hoard of the Dancing Horror event at Wizard's Cache (see here for details), you will be rewarded by more than just the game!

In addition, I have two spare copies of the 2013 Free RPG Day module from Goodman Games to give out - one at Bone Hoard and on on August 17th at the Wizard's Cache mini-con.

Judgement Calls – Good, Bad, and Other

Part of running a game is making judgement calls.  This is so true that, in early D&D (as in DCC) the game master was often referred to as the “judge”.  Anyone who is even halfway decent at running a game is going to try to make judgement calls which make sense within the context of the game milieu, the rules, and his understanding of what the rules represent.  Further, a good judge attempts to neither favour nor disfavour the players.

What makes sense to the judge will not always make sense to the players.  Role-playing games are built around information disparity.  The judge always has information that the players do not have.  The information is never complete – not only would complete information be impossible, but it would be undesirable. 

First, the more complete prep work must be, the worse the ratio from prep time to play time.  Even if the judge manages to gain two hours play from each hour prep, this still means that he has to work for two hours in order to arrange a four-hour play session. 

Second, while it is desirable to map out contingencies for the most likely courses of game play, mapping out contingencies for all possible courses would make game play dull for the person running the game.  It is the unconsidered plans of the players, and the unexpected turn of the game, which provides true thrill for the judge.

Finally, determining all possibilities ahead of time, by tautology, delimits play to those possibilities.  For instance, if a ruleset has no rules that allow for decapitation, and the ruleset determines all possibilities, then decapitation cannot happen within the context of the game.

I am one of those GMs who believes that RPG rules should not be written for lawyers.  They should not require massive amounts of homework to determine how to “legally” make a monster, nor should they require the person running the game to memorize clauses and subclauses in order to play the game.  Moreover, I strongly believe that the game rules serve the fictional milieu, not the other way around.  The game rules give support to the fictional milieu, but if there is a situation where the milieu and the rules are in conflict, the milieu wins.

For example, if a party is attacked by an ice elemental, I don’t care if the author failed to note that it was impervious to cold – I can extrapolate that.  Likewise, if the author failed to note a vulnerability to fire, and the players realize that an ice elemental is likely to be more damaged by fire than electricity, I am not going to penalize player ingenuity on the basis of the writer’s lapse.  I am very much fiction-first.

In the case of a game like Dungeon Crawl Classics, I am very much of the opinion that the judge is intended to interpret the results of various tables and charts – including spell results – in a way that makes sense first in the fictional milieu, matches the rules second, and echoes the writing upon which both were based (the literature of Appendix N) as often as possible.

In the immortal words of Joseph Goodman:  “The judge is always right. Let the rules bend to you, not the other way around.”  If the judge believes that something should work in a particular way, that is the way that it works.

In order to make the game work, the judge needs the authority to interpret the rules.  This doesn’t just mean to interpret the rules when the interpretation favours the players.  It doesn’t even simply mean when the interpretation is a good one. 

Every GM is going to make bad rules calls.  Sometimes those calls will work against the players.  Far more often, they will work to the players’ benefit.  The judge will forget that some monster has an extra action die.  He will decide that the 200 giants not currently engaged in melee don’t throw their javelins.  He’ll forget a negative effect that is attached to some magical item that the party is using, and, having forgotten it, will decide not to retroactively bring the pain.  He won’t make you go back and re-do the fight where the cleric is casting full-round spells as actions.

Players do not usually demand that the effects of bad rules calls, or mistakes in their favour, get undone.  Even when the battle is in progress, they do not generally wish to “roll back” to the first time a character got to take more actions per round than was strictly allowed under the RAW.  Some of those same players will scream bloody murder if they believe a rule call made against them was bad.  Some will even expect the GM to justify any rule call that goes against them.

I have no desire to run a game where I am not able to make rules calls as I see fit.  In all cases, I try to make what seems to me to be the best rule call at the time.  I may make a mistake.  I may not make the best call possible.  But in each case I try to do so.  And I really, really don’t want to grind the game to a halt so that we can argue for four hours about whether nor not you took 2 points of damage.  I especially do not want to do so if the argument is hostile.  Accept the call, move the game forward, and discuss it after the game or on a non-game day.  If an adjustment needs to be made, it can be done then.

Last night I made two judgement calls about how the magic shield spell works.  I ruled that, at its highest value, magic shield does not reduce ability damage from poison, and that it does not reduce ability damage caused by contact (that, in effect, once the attack had bypassed the +8 AC bonus, it had made contact).  I had ruled that “damage” in the spell, effectively, was reduced as a result of a cushioning effect (i.e., a decrease in velocity softens blows that target the protected characters, and that this loss of velocity is what defeats missile attacks). 

The poisoning occurred as the result of the caster’s own spell, as a secondary magical effect in the area he was in.  Part of my ruling was based upon this; if magic shield protected from this effect, consistency would require that it also protect the caster from effects of mercurial magic that might cause the caster damage.  There was divine power involved as well, which I took into consideration (although I would expect magic shield to protect from a bolt from the blue, say, I believe it would not be unreasonable for direct divine intervention to trump magic shield…YMMV).

Similarly, I would not have assumed that magic shield prevented drowning, or aided a character who chose to take some drug that caused Intelligence loss.  Once something is inside the body, it is past the shield, and past the shield’s damage reduction.  I would have ruled the same if a PC were using a poisoned dagger against a creature similarly protected – the AC would determine if it hit, the shield would reduce the dagger damage, but it it hit, the poison would be unaffected by the shield.  It is quite possible to get wounded below the threshold of 1 hp and still break skin – the ubiquitous poison pin trap on dozens of dungeon chests does the same thing.

This is not the only possible interpretation.  It is not necessarily the best interpretation.  In may not even be a good interpretation.  It may even be a craptacular interpretation.  In order to run the game, you have to be able to make rulings, and to not be paralyzed for fear that one might be sub-optimal.

Anyway, I interpret this as falling under camp rules:  If you insult the food, it’s your turn to cook.  I am hoping to get out from behind the screen for a few weeks with the home group, to recharge my batteries, and let them have some idea of what running the game is like.

One is not meant to extrapolate anything

All language is, by its very nature, subjective, although some statements are closer to objectivity than others.  It is nearly impossible to make a complex statement without also communicating ideas that are implied by, but not contained within, the statement.  

I say “nearly impossible” because there might be counter-examples out there, somewhere, even though I have never seen one.  I very much doubt that you have either.  The nature of language is such that the odds of a counter-example are exceedingly remote; this is a problem which has long been known to those who study language and philosophy.

In fact, it is a problem that most of us are aware of well before we get out of high school.  

Many go through a phase of wondering if what they see as “green” and what you see as “green” is the same thing.  Most of us get beyond the navel-gazing implications and move on.  Some of us retain an awareness that language is always vague to some degree, and attempt to compensate for it.  Others not so much.  

There will always be those who believe that they can put forward an argument that carries no implications beyond the precise words that they choose.  When you ask about/point out implications, and you get immediate responses like

I made a post about the thing I wrote about that says the things I wrote, not about the opinions of some phantom side-picking idiots.

Please check your baggage before boarding.

that should be a clear indication that something other than honest discourse is going on.  And that doesn't necessarily mean that the writer is lying to you.  As often as not, human beings tell themselves stories about how they are clear and precise, and the world simply fails to understand them.  As the saying goes, a poor workman blames his tools, and we are all poor workmen from time to time.

First off, what we say always carries more information than what is intended.  In addition to multiple potential denotative meanings, words and phrases carry connotative meanings and meaning by implication.  No one can say “If I meant something other than what was written there, I would have written that instead” with any degree of validity.  Even perfect mastery of language would not help; language is imperfect.

Reader bias is significant.  Whenever we read something, the words always come through a filter that operates, essentially, as “If I had written that, this is what I would have meant by those words”.  The implication is that, therefore, there is a good chance that the writer meant something similar.  

Because writing lacks the tone, inflection, and contextual clues offered by gestures and facial expressions which face-to-face communication provides, these problems are exacerbated.  I firmly believe that most InterWeb arguments would end quickly over a pint at the local pub, not because of the pint or the pub, but because face-to-face communication offers greater clarity of intent.

Even so, it is incumbent upon the writer to be careful about what he writes.  if you don't want the reader to look for meaning that can be extrapolated from what you're writing, for example, you should probably not call it a parable.  A parable implies a lesson, metaphor, or subcontextual meaning to be extracted.

This post has little to do with gaming, but it has a lot to do with how we talk about gaming on the InterWebs.  As writers, we should not be so quick to assume malice or laziness on the part of those who draw different conclusions from what we wrote.  As readers, we should try to separate out our reader bias, and accept clarifications that are offered from the writer.  These things are not always easy to do – I feel pretty certain that any reader of this blog knows that I fail in this regard as often as I succeed – but they are important to attempt.

Second Date Added: Bone Hoard of the Dancing Horror

Excellent Post Alert

There are more excellent posts out there than I could ever point out, let alone read, but this is one worth promoting!

"The GM creates things and situations with potential results, but does not play favorites with those results."

Absolutely spot on.

Read the full post here!

Epic Endgame Redux

There is apparently some confusion about what an epic endgame is.  What is an epic endgame, why would you want one, and why would you indicate what types of epic endgames there might be out there at the start of a campaign?  What makes it epic?  For that matter, what makes it an endgame?

Robin Hood: [to Marian] It's so beautiful, this place... the woods just now... full of noises... everything so alive. I kept thinking of all the death I've seen. I've hardly lost a battle, and I don't know what I've won. 'The day is ours, Robin,' you used to say, and then it was tomorrow. But where did the day go?

If you've seen Robin and Marion, you know Robin Hood's line, "I'd never have a day like this again, would I?  Well, it's better this way." and you know what an epic endgame is all about.  It is not about beginning a character's career, or growing the character, it is about endings.  It is a chance to do something with a character that will forever change the campaign world, and make that character remembered for years to come.  It is about letting a beloved character go, knowing that the character has achieved a peak, and would never have a day like that again.

It does not mean that the character disappears from the campaign world, or that the character need die, or even that the character need never pick up sword and lance and enter the fray again.  It means that the focus of play is shifting to younger characters, characters eager still to make their mark upon the world.

Ultimately, role-playing games are about accomplishing something in a world where daily life holds little chance of real accomplishment.  Possible endgames are telegraphed throughout a campaign because, if the impossible is possible for you, when you first meet it, then overcoming it means nothing.

An epic endgame is epic within the scope of the campaign milieu.  If travel to alternate worlds is common, then travelling to an alternate world is not epic enough to count.  Not only are the stakes high in the epic endgame - even if only because death is around every corner - but the challenge is real.  This might mean Gary Gygax's Tomb of Horrors.  It might mean Harley Stroh's Colossus Arise!.  It might mean wresting an island from the Venetians and then holding it from the Turks.  Achievement is measured in relation to the milieu in which it occurs.

Every James Bond villain that ever was?  All of them have been thwarted while in the process of attempting to achieve their own epic endgames.

Think of the real world for a second.  If you are daring, you know where the epic endgames lie.  Fort Knox.  Mount Everest.  The Tour de France.  Running for high political office.  The Pulitzer Prize.  The Nobel Prize.  Trying to find a cure for AIDs.  You know what all of these have in common?  You have to take big risks to achieve anything, and the odds are good that you won't succeed.  Those who do succeed in their epic endgames - well, we know who they are.  Mother Theresa.  Muhammad Ali.  Alexander the Great.  George Washington.  Abraham Lincoln.

They achieve their endgame, or fail in the attempt, and then never have a day like this again.  Their star shines bright to beckon others onward, but they have had their day, and the focus of history shifts to those who are daring enough to try to rise from the shadows.

Not every character will achieve an epic endgame.  But in a well-managed campaign milieu, lures to achieve something beyond the reach of normal men - or even normal adventurers! - are always in the background.  Because that is what life is, and that is what best allows the players to have an opportunity for achievement in the game.

The alternative is "I've hardly lost a battle, and I don't know what I've won."  If that's your thing, go for it.  It's not mine.

The Falcate Idol

The Falcate Idol is now available at RPG Now.

The Cult of the Harrower is ancient, and each of the eight eyes of its spider-idol is rumored to be a moonstone gem the size of a pigeon's egg.  Moreover, somewhere within the cult's sanctuary, a pool flows from the Egg of Creation.  Will your Thief seek to make a legendary score?  Will your Wizard pursue the shards of the Egg?  Will your Cleric join the cult?  Or will your Warrior fight his way through the web-covered passages to rescue them if they fail?  Any or all of these scenarios are possible!

The Campaign Elements series is designed to help judges create persistent campaign worlds, as well as deal with patron quests, divine requests, and the sudden need to “Quest For It”.  Whether it is because you are short on players one evening, or the wizard needs to locate a new spell, the Campaign Elements series has you covered.

Each of these areas is short enough to be played through by most groups in only a single session.  That doesn't mean that the value of the area is limited to a single session – each adventure includes notes on “squeezing it dry”…effectively getting the maximum re-use from your investment.

An adventure for 2-8 level 2 Dungeon Crawl Classics characters. This adventure is also suitable for 1-2 level 3 characters, or a solo level 4 thief who relies primarily upon stealth and caution.

First Review:  http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2013/07/mini-review-falcate-idol-dcc-rpg.html