Fantasy - and not the X-rated kind

Economicomics

2009-05-28T10:02:00.001-04:00

Regarding this:

I worry a little bit that enough research has been done about this:

Storm could irrigate the crops of all the suffering farmers in the midwest and California when the droughts of summer are destroying their crops.

I don't follow X-Men religiously anymore, and they sneak things like Spidey's organic webbing past me, so this may have changed, but historically (i.e., in the 80's-90's) it was explicitly established that Storm moves humidity around, but doesn't create it. If she irrigates the midwest, she does it by exacerbating the drought in California. In fact, she was essentially doing this as a local rain goddess when Prof. X recruited her.

My geeky trivium aside, I think it's weird when people complain about an amusing theoretical like this as being tired, overdone, or silly. Superheroes are cartoons -- superhero economics is a cartoon of economics. Most of us aren't economists, and thinking through simplified illustrations (including their shortcomings) makes key concepts clearer. Also, it's fun.

Conversation

2009-02-25T21:13:00.000-05:00

The title link is a recurring theme on the D&D blog.

There are distinct phases of gameplay. Some are obvious: combat, for example. Slightly less obvious are planning phases ("So, X casts Invisibility on Y, who sneaks around the enemy camp. After Y's in position, Z will summon..." "No, wait, how big is the camp again? Is the ogre still...?") and conversation phases.

Perhaps the most awkward moments of the game are at transitions between phases, but I think that might be a necessary tension in the game. Players always want more time to prepare before the fight starts, and DMs always have to keep the game moving to the next phase.

But the blog format impacts the conversation phase a lot, I think. (By conversation here, I mean specifically back-and-forth between PCs and NPCs.) The blog format necessarily encourages serial expositions, both from the players and from the DM (who has to do lots of expositions anyway.) I find my characters talking in soliloquys -- even when I want them to be taciturn. (Which admittedly, is playing hard against type.)

This post is driven by me not knowing what to have Mouth say, of course. But I think it's a recurrent theme. Well, yes, it's _also_ a recurrent theme that I don't know what to have my character say. But I MEANT the theme of an extensive description by an NPC, followed by a "Talk, talky people!" moment. It just _feels_ so much like the DM said everything they meant to say...what are we supposed to add?

Blog interface for D&D

2009-02-09T00:57:00.000-05:00

So we've got a campaign rollin' over at dndblog, and it's all good. But I had a suggestion when I realized that for the third time in one encounter, I scrolled down the blog to find the initiative order. Wouldn't it be nice to have the initiative order sitting in a nice block on the sidebar, easy to find?

One advantage of the web interface is that this data is accessible anyway -- it would be more convenient to be in the sidebar, but it's not like it's a terrible burden to scroll down to find it. This is better than the DM having a list to consult and all the players continually asking who goes when. Although over at Paizo they've got a clever device to help you track what's happening.

But once the sidebar seed gets planted, I couldn't help but wonder if the snazzy stuff that GameMastery Combat Pad I linked to couldn't be included in a D&D web interface. Currently, that would be a lot of upkeep for the DM (who just happens to be superuser for the blog). He'd have to update the sidebar every time he posted a round's results -- potentially posting hit points, status, whatever. A blog generally doesn't have the character data integrated with the website (or at least, ours doesn't), but what if it did?

What if the character stats were stored in a database (separate from the database of blog posts, of course, but that just points out there's ALREADY a database the blog's pulling from, so this isn't a giant leap). The DM has some handy interface website where he/she can modify that data. As he does, the sidebar magically updates, and everyone can see not just the initiative order, but what just happened to them. The DM can also post a description of the round and its results, but I'm no longer required to sift through each of those descriptions for how many hp I've gained or lost, whether my opponent's dead or not, whether we've jointly remembered to update the various bonuses/spell effects/ammunition...

Couldn't this go still further -- couldn't each player have (possibly password protected) access to their own character sheet, visible on the same webpage as they were posting their actions? And instead of making two steps for the DM, what if he or she could post a round's results, interspersed with clever wiki-like codes to direct the character/initiative data to update, like "Craig guts the hapless vulture from stem to stern [Vulture1 hp-23] while Georg casts Bless [Party AB+1], bathing the group in a beneficent golden glow."

Fist bump history -- Wonder Twins?

2008-07-02T00:30:00.001-04:00

I'm not really a student of popular culture, but (like everyone) I thought the news coverage of the Obamas' fist bump was sadly unhip. The gesture's been around for years, and I thought was well-known to, well, everyone.

But, it wasn't around when I was a kid, to my knowledge. So where'd it come from? When did it beat out high fives? I was thinking it was a football thing (for a while, some teams were hitting ulnas, kinda like a high five that makes an "X" shape).

But there's an obvious precedent for the fist bump -- "Wonder Twin Powers: Activate!" Other than geeky nostalgia, anyone know of either (a) fist bump gestures preceding the Superfriends cartoon or (b) more justified sources of the fist bump?

As a postscript, a fist bump of sorts was used in the short-lived Thing cartoon ("Thing rings, do your thing!"), but that came after Superfriends and the Thing was fist bumping himself.

Ask, and I receive! I see now (on Boomerang) that "Shazzan" apparently had rings that were put together, fist-bump style, to call the genie. I wonder if some Hanna-Barbera writer liked the imagery, and reiterated with the Wonder Twins?

Avengers/Invaders #2

2008-06-06T20:09:00.000-04:00

"Every kid in America, if his country is threatened."

GO BUCKY!

WOLVERINES!!!

The words I wish I got to define

2008-05-15T03:34:00.001-04:00

So, a little while ago I posted a query on Curmudgeon Gamer, namely What is Ludology? This was an honest question, but asked with ulterior motives (more on that later). And the answers I got were perfectly reasonable.

But then I had to get all fancy-pants and search the Web. As always, big mistake. Not accidental porn big, but big.

At this point, I will digress by explaining those ulterior motives.

When I was young and naive, I came across a brilliantly excitingly named branch of mathematics called "Game Theory". Naturally I said to myself, "holy crap! Pretty darn smart of me to become a mathematician -- now I'll get to play games for a living!"

In case you aren't aware, "Game Theory" is a bait-and-switch ruse right up there with "Greenland". Somehow they managed to take the field of strategic game-playing and restrict it only to games no one would ever want to play. (Apparently there was some analysis of actual games in there at the beginning, but that was swiftly excised, lest anyone actually enjoy themselves.) Even worse, it turns out Game Theory is actually useful in economics, so there are hundreds of books on super-boring "Game Theory" that are actually not about games at all, just taunting me.

Now, as time went on, my interest in games has actually increased, and I desperately want to make a living from analyzing and studying (and playing) games. Real games, that are fun. But I had learned that "Game Theory" was not that.

So while explicitly I was asking "What is ludology?", implicitly I was pleading "Ludology is the immensely fun and cool analysis and study (and play) of games, right? And someone will pay me to be a ludologist?" I mean, how could it not be? "Ludo" is from the Latin for game (ludus), and "-ology" means "study of", so ludology must mean study of games, which is what I desperately want an official legitimate-type word for, right? (Put your hands down, eager beavers -- we'll get to it!)

Now let's return to that horrible "search the Web" idea.

It turns out "ludology" is in fact a pretty widely used term in the field of "game studies", which is a catchall term which presumably includes analysis of the play of games, but also refers to things like game sociology, game criticism & history, game computer science, and pretty much anything that some academic wants to publish that refers to a game. (How game studies should relate to the design of actual games is a topic of some debate.)

But of course ludology doesn't mean what I want it to mean. Oh no. Ludology is both a field and an ideological position, in opposition to the field/ideological position of narratology. Narratology is meant to encompass the study of essentially anything with a story, abstracted from its medium (so movies and books and soap operas and arguably videogames all use narratives, and can all be understood under the narratology umbrella). Ludology pushes back, saying that games are fundamentally _not_ just narratives. Just like narratives occur in different media, so do games (board games, card games, tv game shows, videogames, etc.) and instead of just lumping them in with the narratives, the ludologists say, the play and rule elements of games set them apart and they should have their own umbrella field that discusses the nature of games (abstracted from the medium) the same way narratology treats narratives. And that field is ludology. (The perspectives with horrible -ology names doesn't necessarily stop there: here's an article promoting a "paradigmological" approach.)

While the five word definition of "ludology" is still "analysis and study of games", the meaning behind that is very different from what _I_ was talking about. It asserts a political standpoint (games aren't narratives), and because of that standpoint it is necessarily chiefly concerned with the ontology of games, which is a fancy way to say trying to answer the question "what is a game?" Furthermore, the conflict between ludology and narratology as disciplines pulls them both further away from usefully relating to actual games, which of course require both gameplay and story.)

I understand that any "-ology" needs to make some effort addressing what they're all about, but that's Chapter One of the Intro to -ology book. (Remember reading the "What is Life?" section of your biology book?) The rest is the interesting stuff. You don't take archaeology and spend the whole time learning about "what is old stuff? what makes this the old stuff we study and that the old stuff we don't study?"

Oh, and am I the only one who's annoyed by taking a random word and putting "-ology" at the end of it? "Narratology" is obviously made up, and the natural counterpart "gameology" is equally stupid (no offense intended). But who thought digging up a Latin word to put before the (Greek) -ology would make it more acceptable?

Thankfully, their failing is my last shot. Someone stole Game Theory, Ludology seemed like a good idea but someone stole that too. However, "pediology" would be more consistently Greek -- although people might think it has to do with studying children and/or feet ("paidia", I am told, means "a childish game or amusement"). Equally confusing would be "scholeology", but perhaps even more appropriate: according to footnote 7 on page 5 of this paper (PDF link), the Latin ludus might have been used as a conscious parallel to the Greek schole, which referred both to leisure time and to school.

So, I coined it, I get to define it: I'm a scholeologist, which means that I analyze and study forms of games and game rule systems, both in terms of objective strategies and results and in terms of entertainment value and human-game interaction. I don't study the role of games in society or the society of gamers (what I would call game anthropology), although we might have useful things to say to each other; and I don't study games solely as vehicles for learning and cognition, although that's exactly what I'll tell the funding bodies when I apply for grants, if they'll buy it.

There might be ludologists who would say what I do is ludology (certainly it's not narratology -- I plan to never use the word "Aristotelian" again, and they seem to like it), and maybe I'll come around, but for the moment it sounds too political and "the nature of game-ness" for me. If the hypothesis "the positive effects of rubber-banding such as in Mario Kart for casual players can be achieved with less negative impressions from competitive players if more information is hidden from the players" isn't ludology, then I'm happy to make it scholeology. (I don't know if it's a true hypothesis or not -- possible future paper? :) )

Just in case there aren't enough links in this post, and/or you got here because of a conjunction of search terms, you might want a summary bibliography of books from various sides of game studies. For that, check out this excerpt from yet another book.

Videogames -- still not evil

2008-05-13T09:52:00.001-04:00

Just a little link to direct your panicked parent friends to: in what must be a surprise to everyone, a big 'spensive study found no evidence that violent video games make kids violent. Who'da thunk it?

Baby ability scores

2008-02-16T21:51:00.000-05:00

Of course, this is just for cute geekiness, but (also of course) Jacob is compelled to quibble, to wit:

STR is way too high, INT is presumably too low, and for a typical Cute Baby, the CHA is way too low.

Equally unsurprisingly, I can't help but continue the spiral of geekiness. Or at least, it inspires me to reconsider ability scores and what they mean. And to argue. Which is probably a given.

STR too high: if I had to guess, I'd say these are ye olde Edition of the First stats, where 3 is the minimum. But assuming that a modern baby would be at least 3.5ed, a more appropriate STR would be 1 (same as a toad or bat), 2 at the outside (According the PH, equivalent to a...rat swarm? How am I supposed to interpret that?) Dammit, this whole "arguing with Jacob" plan seems to be falling apart.
INT too low: ah, now the argument will begin in earnest! D&D INT is sometimes described as "IQ", but it's not potential for learning, reasoning and knowledge. How many languages does a baby speak? What bonus should they get for Knowledge checks? The obvious answers to these questions suggest INT of 6 is far too high, not too low. Animals have INT scores of 1 or 2 (Camels, 1; dog, tiger, horse, 2. Apparently some game designer had a bad camel experience and is exacting retribution.) When the kid's old enough to learn tricks like smiling or the cute waving/fist clenching thing, you can proudly proclaim them to have a 2 INT. Don't fret: it'll go up like a point every 6 months. Then they'll be smarter than you, but don't fret about that either: puberty'll hit and dumb 'em down to your level again. And that's my point -- a little more on that in a sec.
CHA way too low: regardless of ye olde "18 max" rules (you could argue that babyhood is some sort of demigod status), this cuts to the complicated heart of what CHA is supposed to represent. Are babies charismatic? Well, heck yeah: they're fascinating, everyone can't keep their eyes off them, and their powers of persuasion and influence are legendary. But (except family members -- huge circumstance bonus!) do they attract followers? Do they inspire morale in those they lead? Do they lead at all? If I were forced, I'd say CHA of 18 is justifiable (not least because being cute is basically the only thing babies have going for them, and that's half the point of the joke), but more is just going down the "No, you've got a Charisma of a million zillion billion, yes you do!" path of treacly silliness.

From this we derive two observations of possible worth. The first is that the D&D ability system is really designed with the short term in mind -- ability scores would dramatically change over a character's whole lifetime, but we generally only see them for a snapshot of a few years or less, and typically the ones whose ability scores matter are in young adulthood, when score changes would be slower than youth or old age. Although the DMG of my youth did have a piece about score changes as one advances through age categories, it almost never got referred to...unless I was trying to abuse the system to generate unreasonable ability scores.

The second is that ability scores are couched in terms that suggest they represent some weird amalgam of many different features, but in game terms are used to represent a relatively small number of effects. "Strength" is supposed to represent how much ya bench, but its greatest game effect is on battle prowess, which presumably involves more than just literal strength. And it's the clearest one. INT, WIS, and CHA are all representations of a host of features, often overlapping: is the ability to present a well-reasoned argument because of INT or CHA? Moreover, all the abilities encompass properties that don't have much correlation: an excellent lockpicker can easily be clumsy or slow, a person's field of knowledge can be deep but narrow, and as has been pointed out a thousand times, ugly people can be powerful leaders.

A fair bit of the time, this "fuzziness" of what the abilities really mean is fine in game terms - we just need a little plus or minus to dice rolls, and the player can describe the source of that little bonus or penalty however they like, whenever it comes up. But every once in a while it exposes the "gaminess" of the rules. It can be hard to countenance when PC A fails at a strength check that NPC B succeeds at due to the luck of the dice, when A is "stronger" than B.

If you don't read comments, here's lots of words!

2008-02-05T16:15:00.000-05:00

To actually respond to Grell:

My bad experience with Goodkind was that I heard an audiobook of "Wizard's First Rule" and it was awful. But I realized later that it was an abridged version and they'd hacked it all up, which is why the plot made such little sense. Also, the voice acting was ridiculous. The Dragon Scarlet was a guy saying "I do declah" in falsetto. You see how this would go awfully.

So, I'll give him another try sometime, once that taste's washed out of my mouth.

You're absolutely right that if you don't distinguish cleric-magic and wizard-magic, you just have generic "spellcasters" and that's lame. At the same time, I always thought spell slots for clerics were a bit weird -- why can't they just holler out "Odin, save your loyal servant!" or something? Spell slots for wizards made more sense -- they were memorizing something every morning.

Jacob's the one who wanted to institute a new magic system without spell slots, not me, but the key thing he wanted was for magic to be mysterious and unpredictable, things-man-was-not-meant-to-know type stuff. I think he only wanted to get rid of spell slots to balance out that he was making wizard spells more random.

It's true that in D&D rules, saying "no spell slots" basically just makes sorcerers. Ya gotta remember that back in our day, there weren't no sorcerers, so they're a new thing for us. 3rd ed. lets you have your cake or eat it too: you can have pre-defined spells, or cast-on-the-fly. That's new for us (me anyway), and I didn't think of it at the time of the IMing. Jacob was just suggesting a sorcerer-with-random-effects scheme for magic made more sense to him, or would be fun to play, or something. I think. I really shouldn't put words in his mouth.

So, since you bring up clerics, here's some more random thoughts about that:

If'n I run the circus, I was thinking that cleric-magic should be much more faith-based. Like, when you get healed, you don't actually see wounds heal up or anything (after all, only the last few hp are supposed to be tangible damage: the rest represent luck and blessings of the gods and suchlike.) You get healed (blessed) by a cleric, and have faith that it does something. (And it does, in game terms -- you get hp.)

There's plenty of cleric spells that're already intangible in their effects, we just don't make a big deal about it: blessings and buffs and healings and so forth mostly just affect dice rolls and stats, not something the characters would actually see. I think it'd be good to keep up that facade -- for the most part, you can only assume that cleric spells are doing any good. And maybe, if you're not a devout worshipper, they aren't...

Another thought I have (and now I see this should've been a front-page ramble -- I mean, post) is that wizard-magic is already a little random: how much damage does a fireball do? Depends on what you roll. Sometimes it's kinda lame, and sometimes it's really cool. Ramping up that randomness might achieve the chaotic effect Jacob's going for.

One thing that I always thought should show up more often is fizzling a spell. (Except when I'm casting it, in which case it should always work.) There's always been nods this way or that to provide the chance of spell failure, but the idea is so horrifying that it's usually watered down enough that it almost never happens in practice.

If (a) fizzling spells didn't waste a spell slot and (b) the wizardy classes have some balancing compensation for the fizzling risk, I think it would be really entertaining and make magic much more "wild".

Final note: "spell slot" is a little ambiguous (to me). A sorcerer has a limited number of spells/day, and in that sense has "spell slots", but usually I think of it as meaning "the number of predefined spells for the day I have". Because I'm lazy, I'm going to assume that you can figure out which one I meant wherever I used the term. And if using one meaning makes me sound dumb, I meant it the other way. :)

2007-12-15T23:52:00.000-05:00

11:06 PM Jacob: 3.0 and 3/5 have lots of things that make good sense-- but they still sometimes violate my old intuitions, and I find it easier to remember rules learned when I was 13 than rules that make sense.

11:10 PM me: Yeah, at first I questioned some of what was being given up by simplifying things like different classes going up at different xp rates, etc. But a lot of it is really good: many fewer tables, more careful balancing (hopefully) between classes, and stocking the complexity in the DM's xp calculations, rather than on the player's sheets.

11:13 PM One notion I had was that a campaign could toddle along for a while, and then go through a wormhole to some mysterious land where everything works just a little differently. Eventually the players figure out that everything's working according to ye olde AD&D rules (or something), and you can feel the difference, if any.

11:14 PM Jacob: Order of the Stick's very first strip had the characters experience the 3.0/ 3.5 transition.

11:15 PM but I like it as a mystery for the players to solve, too.

makes it all quite meta

11:16 PM one of the big problems with a good-rules, good-mechanics RPG is that there' s never real mystery about the way magic works

me: Yeah, I thought OOTS was cute, but it's a pretty slight change really.

Hm. Whaddaya mean, precisely?

11:17 PM Jacob: have you read the damn Robert Jordan novels?

me: No, and I can't say I feel the worse for it, since they seem to cause y'all so much pain. :)

11:18 PM I've been burnt by Terry Goodkind, too, btw, but it's not his fault.

Jacob: hah

and I haven't read him. But generally...

11:19 PM Tolkien aside, because we don't meet the Wizards until they already know everything...

in magic-intensive fantasy literature, since magic screws with the rules of the universe, there's a struggle to learn what it can do and what it can't.

Early Tim Hunter.

11:20 PM or in a different way Earthsea

me: For God's sake, man, why aren't you posting stuff like this and your response to my book comments up on Trollkien, and keeping my vanity blog alive for me!? :)

11:21 PM Jacob: hee. gmail saves the chat; we could just copy and paste

me: Oh, don't think I won't.

Jacob: but do you see what I mean? people complain about the spell-slot system, but I think that's a symptom

11:22 PM the underlying problem is: for an RPG to work, you have to be able to just look up the spell effect-- and that's not how magic feels in fantasy

11:23 PM Jacob: and having the players occasionally not know, quite literally, what the rules are might be a fun way to get that feel back

me: I totally do see what you mean. Although I think people complain about spell-slots from the other side of the perspective

me: That is, after you've read Harry Potter, you know how the spells work: they do what you want, whenever you say the words and wave the wand. None of these namby-pamby limitations that are just in there so the barbarians feel like they can compete with the awesome wizards.

11:24 PM Jacob: yeah, but screw Harry Potter's magic system with a ginsu.

me: Fine, but you know it's not the only one.

Jacob: you say two words of pig-latin. wtf?

11:25 PM me: It's not pig latin. Come on now.

Jacob: I know. It's pidgin-Latin.

me: But the idea of "learn a spell, you can use it whenever" is pretty widespread.

11:26 PM Jacob: that's fine. But Harry Potter spells are so precise, and easy, and limitless, that they feel much less like magic to me

11:27 PM studying isn't studying the fabric of reality, it's studying more pidgin-Latin

11:29 PM Jacob: I think abolishing spell slots, but making spell effects more unpredictable-- and, especially, making there be fewer basic "spells" that everyone can just look up in a book-- would generate the right feel.

me: Ok, before I go on, in response to HP, in fact there's a lot of uncertainty that goes unexplained and people tend to disregard -- all those classes, Ron is screwing up spells left and right, and Neville can't do them, etc.

Jacob: true

11:30 PM me: Harry (and Herminone, and anyone when they need to for plot reasons) don't have a problem casting spells, so it just looks like saying "Expelliarmus!" really fast.

11:31 PM But I'm not going to defend the Potter system of magic as the end-all and be-all by any means.

Jacob: and presumably the teachers do engage in research to create new spells (I wonder what the publication requirements for tenure are?) but we don't see that

me: Have you looked at the Mage part of White Wolf's World of Darkness?

That sounds a bit more like what you describe.

11:32 PM They are teaching in prep school.

And tenure doesn't seem to mean much, considering how often Dumbledore's job seems in jeopardy. :)

Jacob: we'll see how the wizards-are-c00l crowd like it when we abolish spell-slots but make most spells other than Light and Cure Light Wounds require a cauldron and a minimum of 1/2 hr casting time. :-)

11:33 PM heh

but,no, I haven't looked at that system

11:34 PM me: Well, that's the other side of the RPG coin -- you need to have some cool Gandalf stuff to do or they're not worth bringing along.

Jacob: I've got a kick-ass gaming store round the corner; I'll go browse the rulebooks sometime

But other than Light, Gandalf cast about three spells the whole series!

11:35 PM he had Power, even if he didn't cast twenty spells a day

me: I'm not intimately familiar, but I get the distinct impression that spells are more -- fuzzy. Like, you cast a spell and when it works, it helps you, but the actual effect isn't well-specified ahead of time.

11:36 PM True. I say "Gandalf" and I mean "Dude with a flowing beard in a storm with lightning coming out of his hands." It is the power of Tolkien that makes you think that guy's Gandalf.

("you" = "me"

)

11:37 PM Jacob: got to go to bed soon!

11:38 PM I should also look at the huge d20 system rulebook somebody published on a license of the damn Jordan novels-- see how it handles magic

no-- damn. It's the George RR Martin novels, where magic hardly existsme: Bummer. Like his writing, though.Jacob: Martin's?

11:40 PM me: Yeah. Haven't read any Jordan stuff. Only read the comic the Hedge Knight, actually.

Jacob: The Martin novels are much better than the Jordan, certainly.

But the first few Jordans are more addictive. crack is bad for you...

11:28 PM me:But what I was thinking about my dream campaign that relates to this is: as I've written before, magic seems very disruptive to society. ("How's a regular king supposed to rule without an army of wizards and clerics to help him?")11:39 PM me: Ok, so here's a notion of mine. Take as read that magic comes along and is disruptive: invisibility alone just screws up medieval society like crazy. So take the campaign story as the development of magic is similar to the industrial revolution, with new magic being developed all the time and winners and losers coming out of it, and strong social forces trying to control magic, restrict it, etc. And lots of people coming up with new spells to do things like build bridges and pump water, and run society, not just shoot lightning bolts.

11:41 PM Jacob: I like the big idea

me: Okay, I'll let you go to bed. I just thought making magic more "new" to the society at large, and trying to force PCs to wrestle with making magic work to keep society from unraveling, might be similar to your idea that magic should be uncertain. Dovetail with it, at any rate.

Jacob: yeah, definitely.

11:42 PM ok, off to bed now, more another time

me: coo

Game comment and annoying blog behavior

2007-11-18T00:12:00.000-05:00

It occurred to me today that in some ways the most likely new PC is Orchead (although the name is unfortunate). He's behaved notably against racial character, told us a considerable backstory, and been a necessary companion to continue the quest.

In other news, I set Blogger to demand that comments be approved by me to eliminate the occasional spammy comments I was getting. However, Blogger doesn't email me to let me know someone's commented, so if I've been slack on the blog, the comments (really, Jacob's comments) are stuck in limbo. I'm going to try to rectify that.

Update: I believe it's fixed. The comment notifications were being sent to an old email address. Should be working now.

Commentary -- or is it snark? -- on dndblog

2007-10-06T23:57:00.000-04:00

Why is it that Barik's bluff checks always fail due to his poor speaking of Orcish? I think I came by the language just the same as Acavel did.

I'm not asking why Barik's bluff checks fail -- that's the dice talking -- but it seems a sort of weird justification, since knowing Orcish goes by a completely different route, rule-wise, as bluffing does. Using it once, I could understand, but it seems to be the only way Barik's unconvincing.

Not that I want to suggest that Barik's got any personality flaws, but he at least has a dwarfish personality; in addition, I like to think that the average Orc doesn't think like me. Perhaps the average Orc might notice these things?

Perhaps even more significant is what the Bluff is actually about. Although Tau'regk mentioned it once, it certainly seems that the general Orcish opinion is that we're "a bunch of traitors". So the thing I'm trying to conceal is that we are, in fact, the guys who've been attacking and hiding out, NOT the fact that we aren't actually orcs. Hearing my poor Orcish diction might suggest I'm not an Orc; noticing the subtle awkwardness of body language of someone who's unused to lying might suggest we're not just headed to the Tasty Dwarf for a beer.

This does bring up the rather silly oversimplification of language in D&D 3.5: pay the skill points and voila! you're indistinguishable from a native speaker. In my dream campaign, I hope to make "knowing a language", "being fluent", and "equivalent to a native speaker" as separate achievements of increasing difficulty. (On the bright side, I'm not going to handicap you for not having any ranks in a skill, like Scott does.)

D&D 4.0

2007-08-30T01:17:00.000-04:00

This is just a general feeling, and I haven't looked at all the wonderful online stuff that'ssupposed to be better than what we can get already on our own, but I think I'll stick by my previously asserted position: WotC are a bunch of whores, spoiled by Magic, who are trying to market D&D like a software franchise that demands new serious investment from its consumers every year or so.

3.5 made some stupid arbitrary changes, but also tried to fix up some problems in 3.0, which was fine and to be expected because 3rd edition was a big change and there hadn't been much in the way of D&D development for quite a while.

But it's not a merry-go-round. We buy it, we buy ongoing content and modules and sourcebooks and whatever. Tweaking the rules so that we buy new copies of books we already have, new copies of the same old modules and whatnot just because they need to be updated to some some uselessly edited new version just makes me think you're the enemy and that I'm happy living in 3.5 for another decade or so, thanks.

Evil Wizards! (of the Coast)

2007-06-08T21:19:00.001-04:00

My comrade-in-geekdom Jacob clued me in to this.

My response:

They're a bunch of whores.

That's probably a bit too blog-raw for a family blog, so let me rephrase:

I meant: I read their bitching about polymorph, and they're operating
from base assumptions that are precisely those which I think are where
the company's interests and the player's interests diverge.

Hm, the first way conveys the same meaning with a lot fewer words.

Polymorph's too powerful because sometimes people make creatures that aren't
balanced with other creatures of the same HD value. Whose fault is
that, again? Might it be the company that seeks to profit by pushing
more and more content on collection-prone gamers? And has sometimes
ignored whether the new additions were actually advancing the fun and
balance of the game?

Polymorph's too powerful because there's so many sourcebooks
with so many monsters out there. See above, plus: the power of a spell
is accommodated by giving it an appropriate level (and stuff like
duration, xp cost, etc.) You think polymorph's too powerful, give it
some costs and/or raise the level. Or just scale the HD limitation,
either by tying it to caster level or making it less than 15 HD.

Oh, and since when did a generic spellcaster know about all
the monsters in all the sourcebooks? Throw a knowledge check in there
to see if they even know of the creature they want to turn into. (Only
necessary if they're digging around in some expansion book to find the
killer munchkin creature, which is your own fault, but apparently
that's the sort of wizards they play with.)

The ideal "take the form of another creature" spell would limit the caster's options to a very small list of choices (possibly as low as one). To replace even a reasonable fraction of the total functionality of polymorph, then, would require not one spell but more than a dozen, scattered across various levels and class lists.

This is ideal only in terms of making it easy to implement a computer game
using d20 rules without a human DM involved. Not unlike saying "wish
can imitate any other spell of a lower level, but nothing you actually
come up with on your own", which they almost but didn't quite say in
that spell's description, IIRC.

The idea of changing into some animal of choice is a
fundamental magic idea. Removing it from the game is unthinkable.
Stripping flexibility from it is sacrificing what the game is about
because of the designer's inability to find a practical way to
accommodate it. Given the other restrictions available, and that the
"problem" is of their own making (why not have a "Polymorph into any
critter from the Monster Manual", and a higher level "Polymorph into
any critter we foolishly published in our `canon'"?), I question the
sincerity of the "We didn't make this change lightly, and we care
deeply about everything, and after a lot of thought we think this is
the best solution for all concerned" blather at the end.

Finally, they talk about "this errata document", as if there's
a "Polymorph FAQ and Errata" doc somewhere. I don't see it, just the
errata lists for all the books. If you made the design change from the
polymorph POV, why not provide an actual "errata document" that shows
what changes were made to the various books? Seeing as I'm not going
through all my books and actually writing the errata in the margins,
that would be a lot more useful to me, and presumably is what you did in
the first place (find all the polymorph references you wanted to
change, rather than go through book by book and change everything on
all topics before going to the next). Otherwise, save your noise about
how much work you all did and who deserves credit for this "document"
that I can't see.

(Powered by ScribeFire.)

Recurring villains

2007-05-31T01:21:00.000-04:00

Scott misses the point of this earlier post. It's not the recurrence of villains that's annoying, it's the "no chance of cornering or defeating" part.

We had a hobgoblin that Barik freaked out by "coming back from the dead" with healing potions. He ran off, and we ended up meeting him later and wiping the floor with him. Nobody complained about him, and not just because he was relatively easy to defeat the second time around.

The issue was, when we fought him originally, it certainly seemed like (a) it could've gone the other way in our first encounter, but even more importantly (b) it wasn't a priority to us whether he ran off to face us later or not -- we had other fish to fry.

Either one of these elements is sufficient for a recurring villain to be appealing to both players and DMs (and movie audiences). Specifically, (a) gives the players the impression that the encounter didn't have a foregone outcome, and we hate to be run on rails: some of the best "recurring villains" are completely organic -- they just happened not to die in the first encounter. I say (b) is more important because it establishes what sort of encounter we're having, and some useful hint of that is critical in every encounter.

Players want to have some sense of what sort of encounter they're having, so that they can behave appropriately. (Characters in movies don't have this problem). If you run into Darth Vader in the opening scene, you know that you should probably keep your head down and your mouth shut -- this is a bad guy you're developing a hate for now, but that you aren't really expected to confront until later on. If you run into an opponent whose roughly at your level, and there isn't some ongoing plot effect (like you have to kill everyone who might report your existence, for example), then the encounter can resolve in dozens of acceptable ways: you can defeat and kill them, defeat them but they turn tail and run off, capture them, reach some sort of standoff, get captured by them (and manage to escape later), get beaten by them and you run off, etc. In many of those results, both parties survive, and might run into each other again, and that'd be the kind of recurring villain that can have lots of development and dynamic relationship if they keep surviving, or just provide a little thematic consistency if they only last two encounters.

(A somewhat rare possibility is the recurrent thorn in your side who's unquestionably weaker than you: an enemy who surrendered and you let live, for example, who you then keep running into in circumstances where they can continue to annoy but not really harm the party, and it's never convenient enough or necessary enough to eliminate them. A rather funny example would be if Scott's lovely backstory of an orc grunt had a happier ending where he ran away, and the audience got to hear about this guy who happens to be in every orc horde the party ever fights, and haplessly manages to survive several times.)

I'm not sure if Jacob correctly interpreted John's original comment: I thought he meant that right now, in this fight, we've got multiple enemies who, having given annoying speeches and fired off magic attacks at us, smirk and "just vanish". I certainly find that annoying. Even the orcs I know wouldn't follow someone like that -- it's cowardly, leaving their underlings to face the mean PCs, and just because they're fodder doesn't mean they want to be treated like it. :)

Similarly, the most annoying sort of recurring villain is one that seems very much scripted to be a recurring villain from the beginning. There's an encounter, and, contrary to player expectations, things play out in a way that seems helpful to the DM's plot, and impervious to player attempts to derail it.

Anyone who tells you...

2007-05-31T01:10:00.000-04:00

that Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" series isn't top-notch fantasy is an idiot.

Okay, I haven't read the whole thing (I'm partway through book 2, "The Subtle Knife"). But it's awesome. It transcends subgenre. Which might sound stupid, but lemme finish. It's not an alternate history story, quite; it's got a lot of parallel worlds, but that's only incidental to the first book, and there's more to it than that. It genuinely blends fantasy and science fiction (specifically, a fantastic description of dark matter). It's a child-heroine fantasy too, complete with absent/evil parent issues, and oh, did I mention it's also a sequel to Paradise Lost? And just for flavah, it's got a cowboy air balloonist. And talking polar bears!

Tolkien. Lewis. Pullman. Not a stretch.

Comics -- Marvel advertising for the opposition

2007-05-11T00:37:00.000-04:00

I tried to let it go. I read Deadline, and although I of course caviled to whatever geek or wife would listen, I didn't make too big a deal about it. Occasional references would come up here and there -- I recall a bit in Alias, and the whole Civil War storyline perpetuated the offense.

But in "The Initiative: Avengers", it's run amok, and I can't keep quiet any more.

What is the slang, in the Marvel Universe, for superheroes? The answer, obviously, is "capes". Capes are referred to in Avengers #1 (not New Avengers, not Mighty Avengers, just Avengers -- little too much vengeance, people?) four times. Admittedly, sometimes they're used to mean the superhero, and sometimes they're used to refer to the expected costume of a superhero, but nonetheless, capes are clearly what superheroes wear.

Only, of course, it isn't, unless all these Marvel people only read DC comics.

Go down the list of Marvel superheroes, and just like kid sidekicks, capes are in extremely short supply. Rather less common, in fact, than your average ren-faire. Spider-Man? Captain America? Hulk? Iron Man? Wolverine? Fantastic Four? Nope, capes are definitely NOT superhero standard issue. Here's the most visible heroes with capes in the Marvel Universe that I can come up with (let me know if I missed someone).

Dr. Strange -- (Yeah, it's a cloak, still counts)
Storm, old costume (I've got no idea what she wears these days)
Thor
Marvel Boy/Justice/Vance Astrovik
Sentry
Vision
Quasar
Stingray
Sabra
Ghost Rider (Western)
Nighthawk's wings sometimes kinda look like a cape.

I might've missed someone more visible than Stingray, but overwhelmingly, the Marvel Universe is filled with costumes that DON'T have capes. Why would anyone start referring to heroes as "capes"?

Unless they've been looking at Batman and Superman, that is. Unsurprisingly, I don't recall any instance of Marvel Universe denizens seeing a DC comic book in-story, while we DO know that in-universe comics include "real" characters such as Captain America (at one time drawn by Cap himself).

"Masks" would be more appropriate (though still with many exceptions to the rule). But if you're going to go to the effort to make up a fictional jargon, shouldn't it have some semblance of internal consistency?

I feel like this promulgation of "capes" has to be some sort of intentional but misguided "irony". In the entire aforementioned Avengers #1, Justice has a cape, and no other character, new or old, including the Mighty Avengers that make a cameo, has one. Is this supposed to be some sort of dig at the distinguished competition -- when the Marvel superheroes are unpopular, they're referred to as capes? In my opinion, it just sounds like you don't care which company or comic culture you're writing for.

For my fellow obscurists, and in the interests of full disclosure: at the center page (where the staples are), thre's someone in the background with a cape, and someone flying in the background next to Stature who has semi-capelike wings. Are these identifiable characters, or just made up "new recruits"?

Update: I see in Avengers #2 that Phantom Rider (is this _not_ the Western Ghost Rider?) has a cape. Also, Hardball says, of the others flying away "half those guys have capes or wings, and it's not like we're gonna grow a pair of---" What? Capes give you the power to fly? Where would he have gotten such a notion?

Oh, and looking back at Avengers #1, I'd like to comment that artists' depictions of Warbirds outfit have really seemed pretty inappropriate for a while now, but (see p. 12, counting ad pages) I really wish they'd stop drawing it as a thong. She was the first feminist super heroine, for crissake.

And now I see that in Avengers #2, in the big splash page, they couldn't resist another look at Warbird tushie. Classy, the way the search for the next pussycat doll is classy.

Follow-up to dndblog comments

2007-03-31T13:04:00.000-04:00

I would like to agree with Aaron that "a good fight should make us all feel much much better", but there are two related points that occur to me:
1. a year from now, a random fight with grimlocks, unless it segues into the big boss killing us all, isn't going to be nearly as memorable as the whole "Drusilla ends up with one leg covered in...well...you get the picture. (Hey, this is an R rated game, not NC-17)."

2. unlike face-to-face D&D, there's a near-timeless record on the blog of what has gone before. Jacob and Scott have talked about "turning this into a book". Maybe we shouldn't be so pretentious about it, but the fact is, the story's all there to be read, warts and all.

I guess I wanted to point out that while I want to feel better, if we go from grisly scene of grim torture to grisly scene of sexual disempowerment, always being (gratefully) distracted by a new fight, I feel like I'm being used to contribute to a story I don't want to be a part of.

And I don't want that to seem too high-falutin'. Just because I don't want to be a part of a story doesn't mean that it's wrong to tell. Fabio says "if `no obscenity' is a rule here, I will more than happily respect that." I don't know if that's a rule here. I'm not trying to make the rules unilaterally. I'm just saying that there's a rule _for me_, and the line is somewhere between "obscenity" and player characters ejaculating on each other. I figure these rules are decided as a group (with a lot of weight given to the DM), and I don't want to speak for anyone but me. I think I've expounded on my position enough -- I'd like to hear what other people want out of the blog, narrative motif-wise.

I also agree with Jacob that this "spiral" isn't anybody's fault. Fabio's tried to play his weird character, Scott has expanded on it and pushed the envelope, Aaron's attempt to shut the issue down without sacrificing game actions got misinterpreted, and I, for one, didn't have the wisdom and initiative to come up with an in-game response. In retrospect, I think I should've just tried to kill Slthm.

Sexual Assault in D&D -- an antipathy spell I failed to save against

2007-03-28T23:51:00.000-04:00

Hi. Been a while.

I owe you an explanation for my long hiatus. Well, that actually depends on who you are, but I do owe the 3 or so people who are actually going to read this an explanation.

Some time ago, a lull in the dndblog campaign led to some discussion of the question "what are the most memorable moments of the campaign so far?" And I think my response was some of the distinctive game-action moments. But it occurs to me now (especially now) that those aren't actually what I remember most vividly.

Until February, the most vivid moment was Bishop anally raping a half-orc with a hot poker. Which is still a creditable second. But Slthm ejaculating on Drusilla, having his penis ruptured (or not), with attendant jokes from Gonzo Gamer, and Scott casually "moving the game along" -- there's Grimlocks to kill, you know -- has clawed its way deep, deep into my brain.

And I'm not cool with either of those. Frankly, I'm surprised you are.

Figuring out why I'm so upset by the Slthm-Drusilla scene has been instructive for me. Of course, there is the nature of the thing -- coming on someone against their will is a particularly violent and repellent act, not sexual in any sort of good way. (Hannibal Lecter and I agree on this.) And of course, this is a narrative, not factual, which makes it worse. Gonzo thought (and presumably still thinks) that "a taste for sexual harassment is a nice touch for any PC!" I don't think I can communicate how much I disagree.

Dungeons & Dragons is, partly, a jointly developed story. The skeletal structure of the rules presumes an adventure story of heroic action. The DM develops the setting and the plot, and the players provide the characters. I want to contribute to a story of overcoming adversity, conquering evil through courage and wits. But now we've got a story in which the one woman is treated like...like a fucktoy, is the only way I can think of to say it. Aaron's participation in this endeavor is playing and developing Drusilla's character, and his/her serious acts are met with "oh, Slthm's into S&M, and spews on her". I don't have any interest in being a part of that story.

It's gratuitous, but I don't care about that. It's prurient. It's debasing. I used to encourage my wife to read what we were up to on the blog. I thought about telling my students about the blog, and encouraging them to check it out if they hadn't seen games like this before. Mentioning the blog's current webpage to a class now would be professional suicide. With good reason.

I'm probably coming across as prudish, which I think Jacob will confirm I'm not. I think there's a swirl of issues that have come to a head, and it's more than just my visceral response to Slthm's scripted behavior that I have trouble coping with.

Going back to the collaborative storytelling idea: D&D players have conflicting motives. Once the character is developed, we want the character's actions to reflect that character. But separate and sometimes in opposition to that, we want to preserve the storytelling experience -- to keep playing the game. Barik found these humans irresponsible, corrupt, foolish, hostile -- and yet came up with reasons that he should go along with them. At times Grell, Bishop, Acavel and Slthm have earned the distrust and dislike (to put it mildly) of the party, and yet we have put up with each other and even sacrificed ourselves to help other members who clearly weren't worth it in-game, but we were focused on the big picture of "making it all work" rather than just playing our roles.

Feeling like the DM is just screwing with you is pretty common (and usually just paranoia from a run of bad luck), but in this case, another player is causing the problem. Gonzo has more or less said he's screwing with us -- "I've never played such a disruptive character -- I'm having a blast!" is the message I'm getting from him. In other words, he's having a great time putting us in the position of having to choose "keeping the game going" rather than "playing my character's role", because he's been playing his role with complete disregard for keeping the game going.

This is exactly the same message I got from an irritating jock when he announced how much he liked just trying to get under people's skin sometimes, really prod at them until they couldn't take it. There's a word for a person who is consciously trying to make your life difficult because it amuses him. The word is asshole. I didn't have the impression until recently that Gonzo was an asshole, but one thing I'm sure of, I don't like playing games with assholes.

I was (literally) dumbfounded by the response, or lack thereof, by the DM (and his PC, Bishop) in this scene. Gonzo started the whole "horn-dog" moment, but the DM followed it to its grisly conclusion, and then tried to move on as if nothing of significance had happened. I felt rather similarly back at the Bishop torture scene, which Scott clearly laid out in careful detail, then remained obstinately unresponsive as Barik and Acavel refused to let it drop. I was trying to convey then that both I and my character are not okay with this, and that if that's the sort of thing we can expect out of this story, we'll pack up and head for a less evil place. Now that I think of it, we haven't seen the "bad guys" in this adventure do anything as evil as members of our own party. (The hill giants eating Agar is the closest, and I suppose Acavel has suffered dire stuff in hell, but that doesn't seem the same.)

It's late -- I'm going to start summarizing.

As you know, we all have various pulls on our time. Work is demanding more of my time than it used to (new job), family, the everyday tedium of living, and thankfully several avenues of recreation. For the last month and a half, it's been more appealing to play PlayStation games or read comic books (From Hell has taken quite a bit of time -- lots of chapter notes) than to try to wrestle with the issues of the dndblog. Because, frankly, this whole scene's left a bad taste in my mouth. And the one thing Scott's DMing philosophy and the limitations of the blog format guarantee is that it's going to be a long long time before we reach another shortlived "victory moment".

So, I kept not getting around to it and kept not getting around to it, until here we are. I know, my nonresponsiveness is a lousy coping mechanism. That's been made abundantly clear to me several times before, but it's a negative behavior I have that I may never be able to shake. I apologize for disappearing for so long without a word. As the last several years indicate, it doesn't happen all that often, and I'll try not to do it again.

Which brings us to the present. What do I do now? Well, blogwise there's nothing to do -- Barik is apparently Stone-boy of the Nine Toes at the moment. I hadn't meant for this to come off this way, but looking back over this, it looks a lot like a "here's why I'm ditching the blog" message. That's not my intention.

But let's be honest. Maybe you're just thrilled by all the edginess and drama that ejaculating gnolls and anal penetration with hot pokers provide. Maybe you find delicious the feeling of being on tenterhooks because of the maverick play of characters who don't care what the fate of their character, the party, or the game is. That's fine. If that's the way you want to play it, then maybe Barik would be happier off doing something else.

That's not what I want. Overall, I've enjoyed the experience of the blog, I want to know how the story turns out. It's been fun to get back in touch with Jacob and Aaron, and interesting to find out how two strangers (John and myself) who I'm pretty sure wouldn't abide being in the same room in real life can meaningfully work together and communicate in this game. Until these recent events, I had the impression that Fabio was an interesting guy that has some common research interests with me. I don't want to leave.

I'm not trying to make this as some sort of ultimatum or a "I'll come back with these conditions" kind of thing. If Barik gets unstoned, I'll play him. I'm not telling you what to do -- but I am telling you, if this story continues down the road it seems to be, which seems to me to end with turning Drusilla into nothing more than the butt of doggie-style sex comments and the game disintegrating into a competition of whose character is the most entertainingly dysfunctional, my entry's going to be that Barik commits suicide, death by opposing army if possible, but he's not picky. That Barik, such a zany guy.

DMs make the best teachers

2007-02-01T00:59:00.001-05:00

I ask you, what's a game?

The notion of "game" is intuitive, but tricky to pin down, especially with the advent of videogames, MMO communities, etc. But here's a vague description that's not too far off the mark: a game provides challenges, and somehow quantifies the player's progress through (or victory over) those challenges. D for instance, and all RPGs, are "about" facing trial after trial after ambush after trap after trial, coping with each in one way or another, and getting rewarded with levels and booty, the better to face the next hurdle.

A class is also supposed to provide challenges, and quantify the student's progress through (and ideally, victory over) those challenges. It's harder to find distinctions between games and classes than similarities.

What are the traits of a good teacher? Some are strict, some are friendly, some are innovative, some stick to tried and true methods. But a good teacher makes classes compelling, makes the subject interesting, keeps students interested.

Thus, the post title. A dungeon master (or any other game designer) starts with a bare structure, and builds a compelling environment, and a dramatic storyline that doesn't just make you follow it, it makes you play a part in it.

If anyone's got a good campaign idea for College Algebra class, pleeeeeze let me in on it. Seriously.

Of course, every good DM uses some of the fine resources already out there. I'm going to start out with Module Q1, Queen of the Demonweb Pits.

"Okay, Stephen, you're the thief, hiding under the drow altar. Peering out from under the black velvet, you count 46 legs. Meanwhile, from her vantage point peering down from the balcony, Vanessa the barbarian sees 16 drowish heads. After your companions report what they've seen, it's up to Ashley the mage (who has the highest Int): how many driders and how many drow are out there?"

rats...

2007-01-24T00:25:00.000-05:00

I'm annoyed (mostly at myself) that I didn't post promptly. As a good dwarf, Barik'd much rather get a useful MAP than blindly follow an inconsistent and suspect gnoll. But, you sit around too long and next thing you know, you're in some lizard lair and the DM's asking for the marching order again.

fun stuff

2006-08-09T13:56:00.000-04:00

Bob, do you know the site Giant in the Playground Gaming? It's got fun stuff you'd like-- not only bits like The Gingerbread Golem, but also a series of articles ("The World") talking through campaign-world construction, historical and cultural analogues, and so on. (And it also has the must-read comic Order of the Stick.)

Another bit o' D&D software

2006-05-10T19:06:00.000-04:00

I've been looking at kLoOge.Werks (see link above), which is quite a funky D&D app. Also, it and Gametable (link in post below) are the first I've seen of semiserious people actually distributing Java programs (rather than applets). This is very cool for me, because it's genuinely portable -- I can run kLoOge.Werks on my Linux box happily, yet normal people can use it too.

Mapping Software?

2006-05-02T19:16:00.000-04:00

I've brought up other web formats (like wikis), and in that post described some of the basic D&D "functions" you'd like an online campaign to do easily. These are from the point of view of a player, who wants to view the page, see both the current situation and the relevant past information (like his/her current character, as well as easy access to past conversations and encounters), and then describe his/her current actions.

One point that Jacob highlighted (and I agree with) is that "relevant past information" could be anything, and being able to store all the past history and search through it later is important.

I briefly mentioned the idea of interactive map software, which might be terribly complicated, but OpenRPG (for example) has a very nice one, and I would think there would be a lot "shared whiteboard" stuff out there. But the sharing isn't what I want to talk about at the moment.

I'm interested in hearing about good map-drawing applications. If I recall correctly, Scott uses Visio, which seems a little like using an elephant gun, but it certainly seems to work well. Unfortunately, not only do I not have Visio, I doubt it's available under Linux, which I much prefer to Windows (I don't have Windows at home at all).

I've done a little Googling, and some of the (Windows) software out there includes Dundjinni, Campaign Cartographer (which, to me anyway, looks ugly), and Campaign Suite, and that seems to be just scratching the surface. Here's some more links, in case you've got a yen to go surfing:

AutoREALM
GridSmith
TavernMaker

And those are just the ones with high-PageRank individual sites. The programs appearing in long lists of available software are innumerable: if I figure out how to put some sites on a blogroll, I'll put some aggregated sites there, just for reference.

I said I wasn't talking about whiteboardy stuff, but I'm breaking my own rule because this has the benefit of being OS-independent (and apparently does mappy stuff too).
Gametable
seems to do all the cool stuff OpenRPG does, only without a special client.

Do you know of other mapping tools? Got any experiences to share? I care about functional over pretty, although I draw the line at "illegible", and speedy development is most important of all; if it's easy to draw maps, we'll see a lot of them with lots of updates, and if it's a pain, we won't.

I did have bold plans of setting up a deme.org wiki-style faux campaign, just so we could take a look and try it out. I still have that plan, but it's too late and I have a big phone interview tomorrow.

Copyright concerns

2006-05-01T16:43:00.000-04:00

(Note to Jacob: I really will actually reply to the comments -- but I also want to keep posting the seeds of ideas, to keep a stream of topics running through the heads of the thousands of readers. Dozens of readers. OK, reader.)

Once a new online D&D campaign actually gets spawned from here, I want to incorporate as many colorful resources as I can (ideally, without too much effort). Over at dndblog, Scott's graphics have really brought things to life -- not just the maps, but pictures of mountain lions and images from the Monster Manual too.

The graphics from Wizards.com, although hard to find (hence the lack of link), generally have text around them indicating that they intend you to use them to enhance your own campaign. On the other end of the spectrum, a typical book with lots of artwork has very dire warnings against using any of its art for any purpose at all.

I want to solicit from people likely to play in the campaign where their vision of "fair use" lies. While the chances that some litigious copyright holder is going to trip upon this blog (or wiki, or whatever) are remote, I want to make sure everyone is comfortable with anything that gets uploaded from anyone. So we should all be on the same page in terms of what's appropriate. I'm going out on the limb of assuming no one's going to upload pornography to a D&D site, so next on the list is "possibly infringing material".

Let me first state my attitude. I think I tend to fall more in the "yeah, it's fair use" camp than "no, you can't use anything without permission" camp. For example, I'm of the opinion that links to images on the web (img src="somewhere.com/picture") aren't really much in the way of copying: someone's made the image available to be viewed on the web, and making it appear through a window on our page isn't meaningfully different from viewing it in situ. But that's just me. You might feel differently (and might have case law on your side; unfortunately, the courts haven't yet adopted the "Bob reasonableness standard").

One might ask whether worrying about copyright is even relevant: I mean, the vast majority of stuff is going to be created by us, and what little snippet pictures from magazines or books or what have you we throw in has gotta be fair use, right? That may well be your point of view, and certainly in terms of a local D&D game, using some visual aids with your group seems like fair use to me. However, if our online stuff is accessible to everybody in the world, scanning your favorite Boris Vallejo print and putting it up on the campaign website lets more unscrupulous people, unassociated with our D&D campaign, grab that art and print it on T shirts. Are they violating copyright laws? Of course. Might they try to pin it on us and get us involved? Maybe. Might _we_ get unfriendly cease and desist letters? Unlikely, I think, but possible.

Some possible resolutions to this:
- don't put possibly copyrighted material on the blog at all. This is somewhat annoying, since, for example, I'd like to use images from coffee table books about the Crown Jewels to show the cool treasure you've just discovered. Also, it's hard to tell what's copyrightable/copyrighted/usable and what's not. What about the geomorphs at the back of the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, or a map made from them? How about a picture taken of lead figures on the tiles from Dungeon Floor Plans? (That said, Flickr.com and Google's Advanced Search options, and everything Creative Commons does, can help find images that are explicitly usable. And convenience in and of itself is no excuse -- it's cheaper for me to steal food instead of buy it, but that doesn't make it right.)

- make a secured, "login" part of the page (or the whole campaign website), so that only a small group of people have access. Now you're not sharing a picture of your Boris Vallejo print with the whole world, but only with 6-10 people. Trying to justify to yourself that this is fair use is a lot easier. Of course, this means you have to login to the page, and someone has to figure out how to manage Web security, at least a little.

- analogous to this, the page could have only public domain/licensed to share stuff, and occasional color material could be delivered by snail mail (or email). I kind of like the idea of players getting occasional mysterious funky envelopes with arcane bits of parchment inside, and/or pictures of treasure or monsters or whatever.

- Possibly, I'm blowing this whole issue out of proportion. We put up what we like, and in the unlikely event someone complains about it, we take it down. No harm, no foul -- at least, that's our story and we're stickin' to it.

The most important thing is, everyone feels comfortable with the policy we take at the outset. I know some of us are professionals and copyright holders ourselves, and might feel strongly about these things. I don't want someone not playing D&D, or worse, quitting D&D, because I put something up on the web that they don't want to be a party to. I would like to be sensitive to all concerns.

But if it's no big deal and we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, I'm okay with that too. Whatever you want.

Ug

2006-04-26T21:51:00.000-04:00

I am being, as they say, "beaten like a ginger-haired stepchild" at work. Not literally. And I don't mean any offense to, as I would call them, redheads.

But I will not let _another_ day go by without putting out some incoherent D&D thoughts. So here they are:

I wanted to put something more coherent here, but I simply don't have the time, so let's assume it'll shape up on its own, wiki-like...

Actually, that's point one. Is the blog format the _best_ way to implement a web-based D&D game? I've looked a bit at wikis, openRPG, and the crazily interesting Deme (on groupspace.org), and you should too. Had I been able, I wanted to make a little sample campaign deme site, wiki, and blog, and compare how they felt to use.

Seems to me some of the functionality you want from a D&D campaign website is:

A) effective character viewing/manipulation (probably have to be a dynamic webpage with a database backend)
B) an easy "post action" interface (which blog does well)
C) make it easy to see the current situation so you know what action to post: this ties in with seeing your character, but also might involve graphics: having a powerful way to view a map, maybe even draw on it so you can clearly indicate what you want, where you want, would rock. OpenRPG has this, but that's all XML and seems to be tied to the OpenRPG server, which makes it not as usefully asynchronous as the web (OpenRPG seems to need the players and DM to be online at the same time, interacting through chat.)

A downside to the blog is that it's hard to see what the deal is, _now_. I find myself flipping through the blog all the time, looking to see what got used when, scrolling down to the last map, etc. The nice thing about a wiki is that you can insert your action, the DM can shuffle them around on the same document, and you end up with a nice description of what started out as everyone's separate actions. Similarly, a map graphic (if not an interactive whiteboard) could at least be downloaded, modified, then uploaded by players to show their movement or lightning bolt or whatever.

Lemme know what you think.

Rebecca's awesome

2006-04-23T11:34:00.000-04:00

So, a weekend ago I was wurfing at school ("wurfing": sorta work, mostly surfing; worth coming into school to surf sometimes because my screen there is so much bigger.) And before I come home, Rebecca drops me an IM that I should check out one of the charity shops she passed by, because it's got a bunch of D&D mapping stuff.

It was a treasure trove.

Clearly someone was clearing out a lifetime collection, because the "Save the Children" shop was selling books (AD&D Unearthed Arcana, Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, v.1 (second edition, orange spine) Players Handbook, v.1 Monster's Manual II, v.1 Fiend Folio, v.3 Players Handbook), lead figures (I'm guessing at least a hundred, mostly Grenadier AD&D, but some others too; almost all of them are very charmingly stored in old matchboxes), and the aforementioned mapping tools: Games Workshop's Dungeon Floor Plans 1,2, and 4, the last two in their original boxes and provably complete. Also, a Judge's Guild booklet w/maps for a variety of boats. And some transparencies with hexes printed on them -- I dunno if the original intent was to overlay them on maps, or for projecting onto a screen.

I'm going to return most of the books tomorrow, since I've got them already, except for the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide and the v.3 Players Handbook, which I'll keep. The v.3 PH is mostly for reading about the "old" rules so I can carp about how much better the "fixed" 3.5 version is. :) The DSG has the supa-cool perspective mapping advice and templates in the back (remember the crazy castle map in Ravencroft?)

The Dungeon Floor Plans are basically a lot of 1" tiles, intended for you to cut out either singly or in strips or chunks (most of them have been) and laid out as a map. So, for example, you cut two strips of flagstones, and voila! Ten foot wide passage. Put a door at the end of it, with some grass and trees outside, and there's your dungeon entrance. They recommend putting it on a black background, so the untiled space gives the impression of solid wall. Set 2 has room details (statues, tombs, pits, stairs), water, and grass & trees. Set 4 has rough tunnels and mine accessories (carts, rails, wheelbarrows).

The whole collection was 35 pounds. I'm not sure how best to leverage these things, but they're freakin' sweet. And my appreciation for Rebecca, in particular her willingness to aid and abet my dungeonphilia, cannot easily be expressed in words. :)

2006-04-22T22:09:00.000-04:00

Okay, okay, so it takes me a while to figure out how this whole `blog' thing works.

I've been thinking about D&D in general, and dreams of this particular online campaign in particular, like every day. I write down notes on random bits of paper spread around various locations as they occur to me...and then as I was thinking "I should really put all this stuff somewhere I could always get to it", the penny dropped.

Oh, you mean, I'm supposed to actually just put random thoughts up on _the blog_, instead of just thinking about them, losing track of them, _and_ letting what could be a vaguely interesting blog to as many as three other people fall into dusty abandonment.

So, my plan is _now_ to try to post to _this_ blog way more often (like daily), and to my other random blogs once a week. (I probably shouldn't make promises I can't keep, but if I don't make 'em, I _definitely_ won't keep 'em.)

So, some D&D thoughts of the day:

When you think about it, there are a lot of weird things about the supposed culture in D&D. I mean, the bits you get from the Players Handbook, your own background notions, and various fantasy sources is that you've got a sort of pseudo-medieval feudal thing going on, with pre-gunpowder technology, lots of peasants farming out a living, but lots of magic around that does all kinds of cool stuff, and lots of fantastic beasties like dragons and stuff.

Think of how some of the most common magic would have crazy effects on society. First of all, if you can talk to animals and they can talk back, isn't there something weird about eating them? I mean, sure they're not very bright, but it still seems cannibalistic. Besides, as Rebecca points out, as an even more common bit of magic, you can make food. Explain why all those peasants are farming again?

Heck, clerics can heal wounds and cure disease. I'm not even talking about raising the dead, which is a whole new kind of brain-twisting. Try to imagine the way the world would change if every disease, and nearly every injury, could be cured, instantly, by one in every few thousand people. Then think about the Middle Ages, only without the plague. It's like talking about Russia in the 20th century, only without the Communism.

Summary: The whole construction of D&D's fictional culture has fundamental distortions that are usually swept under the rug.

d-n-dblog observation

2005-12-24T12:56:00.000-05:00

Just a little note in regard to Acavel's comments about hitting a skeleton with a mace:
I don't think there's any bonus for hitting the skeleton with a blunt weapon, just that there's a penalty for hitting them with anything else (swords and arrows, e.g.)

2005-12-03T23:48:00.000-05:00

Yes, yes, yes!

I leave a copy of my character sheet in Files in powerblogs, so in principle I can do this, but it's a bit of a hassle, since the sheet is still an XLS document. Anything to make it easier to use-- and, especially, easier to update, so equipment could be changed online-- would be great...

2005-12-02T21:01:00.000-05:00

I want the upcoming campaign to be as easy to use as possible. I think I can set up the website so that you log in, and then can see your character sheet online. That way, when you check out the website from your vacation in Maui, you'll know what spells you've got, what's in your backpack, etc.

Does that sound like a feature you'd want? Is it something you'd use regularly enough that I should look into it further?

2005-11-30T13:02:00.000-05:00

Jacob/Linnam asks about starting up his character, and while it'll be after Christmas before I'm able to offer sweet campaignin' action, any and all comers are welcome to start putting together characters now. If there's more you want to know about the campaign background, or you want some seed ideas, just let me know.

(If, contrary to expectations, I get more than a dozen responses from people that want to play, I'll have to cut down the size and/or restructure things.)

In keeping with Principle 1, all that is required for a new character is to send me a paragraph (or a few) describing who they are. Keep in mind that characters are essentially normal people with some exceptional aptitudes and vast potential. So if you say "Bjorn is a superhuman who is great at everything" what you'll get is a character who is above average in everything, but in practical terms not very much above average. If you want to be quick as a cat, say so. Insofar as I can from your description, I'll make sure my description (and internal rule details) are true to your character concept.

And I will take just about any character you want, with the following conditions: if you want to be someone that wouldn't be in a fantasy medieval-European style town, I leave it to you to come up with the backstory of why your alien cowboy (or whatever) is there and how they've managed to fit in, insofar as they have. Second, if you want to be the evil villain, or the king, or whatever, that's fine too -- but you'll probably have to accept that that character may not have daily interactions with everyone else. Furthermore, in the case of the king, you might have some very atypical to D&D situations to cope with. While in the case of the evil villain, you should come to terms with the fact that your character is not going to win in the long term, and is much likelier to come to a bad end than the "regular" player characters.

If you do want to try these funky character choices out, I further encourage you to take on several roles, from grunts to town guard captains, so that you'll have more interactions with the other players. I am more than happy to offer such "temporary roles" to people interested in a change of pace.

2005-11-30T10:24:00.000-05:00

In order to put up a new post here myself, I had to remember my blogspot login information from back when dndblog was on blogspot, since that's how I was added to the blog, way back when. Took about a dozen tries.

So anyway, when do I start drawing up my Bridgstow-based halfling bard?

2005-11-26T17:44:00.000-05:00

Two scouts or one: the effect of skill check rules (reference to dndblog.powerblogs.com)

So, the following issue has come up: the party has one rogue, Acavel, who's the best hider and silent mover (understandably). Barik, a ranger, could pour his skill points into hiding and moving silently, and together with a cloak of elvenkind or armor of shadows, could be as good at hiding, and a few ranks lower at moving silently. On the other hand, the one rogue could use the armor instead, and be _really_ good at hiding. So do we want one character to sneak around, recon, etc., or two?

Tactically, there's a lot to be said for having a team of two instead of one. If they find something, one can report back while the other keeps an eye on the situation; if they run into trouble, one can hold off the hordes while the other gets help, or at least the two can support each other in an organized retreat. Or, they could go off into different directions, surrounding an opponent or covering more area faster.

Here's the problem: suppose the two of them are headed down the corridor, and something might hear them. How's that get resolved? The way I interpret the rules (at least at first), they each roll their Move Silently checks, and the something rolls its Listen check, and if it gets a higher score than one of them, they're rumbled.

Probability-wise, this is quite a bit worse than one of them going alone, even if they have the same skill. In that case, it's the same probability as if the one going alone rolled his Move Silently, and Evil DM (tm), after seeing that roll was too good, said "naw, don't like that...roll again, see if you fail this time." To put it even more mathematically, if either scout had an M in N chance of being undetected (i.e., 1 in 2=50%), the two together have an M squared in N squared chance (25%, in the previous parenthetical).

That's a pretty vicious penalty. So PCs adopting the two-scout strategy should reconsider -- although a two-watchman strategy when you're camped out makes a whole lot of sense.

Unless you're a diehard fan of D&D rules trivia, stop reading now. The last paragraph was the most useful comment you're going to get out of this.

Group skill checks are one of the times when the situation for a group of NPCs need not be symmetrical to that of a group of PCs, although it's quite unclear. The DMG's section on Skill Checks (3.5e, p.30) indicates that for "influencing one person, creature, or group" or to "perceive one sound or sight", the "DM decides if NPCs are acting as individuals or as a group." How or if this applies in opposed checks is not at all clear; I go into detail about some possible schemes at the bottom of this post, below the line of asterisks. Don't read that unless even the other diehard D&D trivia fans think you're a freak. In the meantime, let's assume that this grouping thing doesn't apply; in opposed checks, every PC rolls and every NPC rolls, and each Spotter/Listener detects all the Hiders/Movers who scored less than they did. This makes it awfully hard for anyone to sneak past a group, and can generate boatloads of die rolls, but at least it's "fair".

How hard is "awfully hard"? Consider a "commando team" of rangers, sneaking up on a camp of orcs all gathered by the campfire singing "Kum-bay-ya". Let's say there's 5 rangers, around 9th level. Counting their +4 from dexterity and +2 for circumstances and the max +12 skill ranks, they're +18 on both Hide and Move Silently checks. These are just a score of grunt orcs, and let's give them a -2 for circumstances, so they're +0 on both the Spot and Listen checks. Unless a ranger rolls a 1 and an orc rolls a 20, the rangers won't get discovered.

The odds of one orc rolling a 20 and one ranger rolling a 1 are 1/400 (0.25%). But the chance of at least one of the 20 orcs rolling a 20 and one of the rangers rolling a 1 are 14.47%. And that's just the chance of the rangers being spotted. The chances of them being spotted _or_ heard are 26.9%, just over 1 in 4.

Here's a more typical example. Suppose a single rogue has a +10 to their Move Silently roll, and he or she rolls a 10 while trying to sneak pass a room. If it's got one guard in it, with a +6 Listen check, the rogue has a 70% chance the guard won't roll the 15 or more he needs. Change the number of guards to 4, and that chance drops to 24%. That seems low to me -- although if the "opposed check" were a tug-of-war, maybe that'd be about right. One way to try to fix this would be to give the guards all a -2 circumstance penalty (because they're distracting to each other) -- then the chance of the rogue's success improves some, up to 40%.

Or we could pretend three of the guards are really doing "aid another" attempts for the first one's listen check -- I don't even know how that would change the probabilities, but it could make things worse, not better. Or maybe after the second guard, the other two don't really help any, and can't make checks. And if that isn't complicated enough, how do we treat the inverse problem of a group trying not to be detected? Do we not have people after the first two make checks, because they don't contribute to the silence?

The simplest alternative system would be that in any opposed check, each side only makes one roll: the best Spotter/Listener rolls vs. the worst Hider/Mover, for example. But that ignores the contribution (or lack thereof) of the rest of the people entirely. Why is it always Hawkeye that catches the goblins? And does he see all the goblins, or just Klompy? What if some of the quieter goblins were coming from the other side? Do we treat them as a separate group? Oh geez, I thought this was the problem we were trying to simplify away...

********************************************************************************

[This is the consideration of "asymmetrical" opposed checks, where a group of NPCs is treated differently from a group of PCs. If you haven't been riveted by the post so far, you're really going to despise the time you'd be wasting if you read this. You've been warned.]

The examples in the DMG indicate that a PC would get one check to spot a group of NPCs at a distance [Note: it's not clear if this is an opposed check, but it seems not], but that a PC Moving Silently would face the Listen checks of every NPC in a group. But what about a group of PCs Moving Silently? Do the NPCs get one number to beat, or the worst of two? There isn't a clear example I can find in the DMG of opposed checks where the NPCs are treated as a group -- would that mean they make one roll, or that they only have to oppose one roll, or that NPCs each make their own roll in opposed checks, and are never treated as a group? The third case makes the most sense, that I talked about above, although the first one isn't completely crazy. The second one is in fact completely crazy, and I'm worried about my own mental health just as a result of thinking about it.

The first case isn't symmetric, but it's not entirely unbalanced: if a group of NPCs rolls once for the whole group, that means they'd be harder for an individual to spot that a group of PCs (since they'd only have to succeed once, while each PC in a group would have to succeed), but they'd be worse at spotting an individual (since they've only got one chance to succeed, while the PCs would have a chance each.) If a group of NPCs and a group of PCs try to sneak past one another, there's still a good chance they'll run into each other, since the PCs have a lot of chances for high Spot/Listens, but just as many chances for low Hide/Moves. The chance would be considerably reduced from the "everyone rolls against everyone" scheme, however. The PCs would be wise to have multiple people on watch, but only send one out for scouting reports, so they're not fighting the probabilities.

The other asymmetric case is that the group of NPCs only opposes one roll (that is, all the NPCs make a check against one roll for the PCs.) This seems pretty antithetical to the idea of D&D, since the NPCs are being treated more individually than the actual characters with individual free wills, but let's put that aside for a moment just to consider this silly case for academic purposes. Then the roles are reversed, and the only interesting twist is how to decide what the bonus on the PC roll is: is it the bonus of the most skilled PC, the least skilled, an average, or is it different for different skills? (A group of generic NPCs are pretty close to the same skill level, so I didn't mention this for the previous case.) No matter the bonus selection mechanism, the PCs don't gain anything by having more than one night watchman; in fact, if the PC bonus is anything but "same as most skilled PC", it actually hurts them to have more than one! On the other hand, it doesn't hurt them to send out several scouts -- if several PCs have the same skill bonus, there's no penalty for numbers. Again, opposing groups (PCs vs. NPCs) are likely to spot each other, this time because the NPCs have lots of chances to get high and low rolls, but not as likely as in the "everyone rolls" scenario.

2005-10-26T21:29:00.000-04:00

Here's a little taste of campaign background; I have hopes of including some nice "primary source" material, but I wanted to give you something to gaze at (comment on, argue with) while I work on that.

The geographical setting will just happen to look exactly like Great Britain. The starting point will just happen to be right where Bristol is, and the name of that city will be (somewhat unoriginally) "Bridgstow".

While the setting will have bits and pieces that are distinctly evocative of historical Britain, that's partly an illusion; I've got a Greyhawk gazetteer, and I'm taking a chunk of that land mass, mushing it into a Britain-shape, and associating pieces of it with their approximate historic/legendary equivalents. So whether you think of the theocracy to the north as the Prince-Bishop of County Durham or the Archbishop Hazen's Veluna is up to you; the names and geography are mostly the former, but the social structure and characters are mostly the latter.

Here's some social background that's a little different from what the 3rd edition D&D folks are used to; for everyone else, you can just take it as the way it is for this campaign, or argue about why the campaign world's destined for trouble if it's set up this way.

Halflings are like hobbits. Unlike the current D&D image, they are not short gypsies. Instead, they integrate very well with human society, with many towns going by two names, a halfling (actually, they prefer "hole-builder" or "hill person") name and a human one. Effectively, the hill person town co-exists with the human town, generally managing to share space without fighting over resources. This is because the humans tend to farm the lowlands and the hill people tend to, uh, live in and off the hills, herding animals on land that's not desirable for farming and farming terraced slopes that are too steep for humans to want to fool with.

Gnomes, on the other hand, are (or at least seem to fit stereotypes of) short gypsies. Most gnomes the non-gnomes see are in visiting caravans, usually circuses or musicians, but sometimes merchants with exotic snake oil to cure your every ailment. Gnomes are tolerated, rather than encouraged, by many town authorities. Often the gnomes set up outside the town, and are not welcomed in. "By all means, go to the circus -- it's the best show all year! But leave your money-pouches at home, kids -- if you've got nothing to steal, you've got nothing to worry about." Gnomes have a reputation as flim-flam artists; everyone knows that a gnome can make you see whatever he wants you to see. Fortunately, although they're sometimes out to line their pockets at your expense, they're not particularly malevolent.

There are no kung-fu monks walking the earth and acting aloof. Well, there might be some in Asia, but there aren't any in Bridgstow.

2005-10-06T22:17:00.000-04:00

...and spending months resolving a fight with a bunch of orcs would be a drag...

Hey! Says who?

Second, how will dialogue work in an online format? Can we make it work better than serial monologues?

Difficult. Takes dedication. Depends totally on how frequently players post. Some players also get testy when the GM takes too many liberties with their dialogue. (And I will resend you your own e-mails to me, Bob, if your memory is lacking on this particular point. Zing.)

Third, how will combat work in an online format? Can we streamline it so it doesn't take forever, while still keeping it player-driven?

Again, players get upset when you take liberties with their actions. Combat is tricky - the environment changes from round to round, and people will make different decisions based on which enemy is wounded, whether a friend is in trouble, whether or not to try a new spell, etc. If you pass people over by just using some standard action (like, "hack the orc until it dies"), you take a lot of the fun out of this aspect of the game. In addition, once more, players get upset when you make these choices for them.

Finally, choices really do matter. A lot. In every encounter. Take the dndblog as a for instance. If I decided for a non-responsive player what to do in the Shrine (or in the encounter with Lucy, or with the Old Man) based on my perception of what I think they would do or based on "standing orders", and didn't give people enough of an opportunity to post what they wanted to do, that encounter (and all the others) would have turned out very differently. Not necessarily for the better or for the worse -- but just different. And then, the encounter wouldn't belong to the players.

Player non-response can be maddening. Bob, from the sense I get from your earlier posts, I think you will be very frustrated at the reality of running an online game. You want to wait for players to post, since it sucks for you and them when you make choices on their behalf. Inevitably, even dedicated players take 2-3 days to respond to situations. And then, players want to wait for the person who stands before them in an initiative order to know what they're going to do (understandably so -- why waste your attack against the ogre when it's running away but the dire wolf is eating your Paladin). Again, just look at the dndblog or Makadea (Fab's blog) for weekly examples of this. If you think you can run a happy game with players who occassionally post, and with you filling in all the gaps on their behalf so that you can put moves up on a daily basis (or even every other day), or you think you can get players to really post that often (more than a couple) then god love ya.

2005-10-02T19:32:00.000-04:00

Okay, I'm thinking maybe I went a bit overboard, and put too many posts out on the blog at one time, so everyone's thinking "dude, I don't want to work that hard...I'm going over to the KODT website" or something similar.

By this logic, this post is compounding the problem.

Nevertheless, I want to urge everyone who ever reads this to feel free to post (or comment, or email, or whatever) about whatever thoughts pop into your head, even if they are only peripherally related to blogging, D&D, or any combination thereof. Do not feel like you have to read all this stuff. I'm not going to harass you (well, any more than I currently am) if you write the same thing someone else wrote, or the exact opposite opinion of what I wrote, or something both incoherent and wrong. I will read whatever you say, and consider it seriously.

Everyone else who offers you the same is lying. But not here. The Trollkien loves you.

2005-09-30T09:41:00.000-04:00

The last (?) issues brought up so far: Crowding and Absence. (Let me know if there's something not closely linked to the previous posts that I've missed.)

How many players/how many characters? Parties seem to get unwieldy after about 6 characters. Partly this is just because stereotypical adventuring isn't built for it -- 10 foot corridors are too tight for more people. :) And also, with too many "main" characters, it's hard to build a narrative with everyone getting some attention.

That's not to say it's impossible, particularly if the game works not as one party, but as separate "scenes", with a few people here, a few people there, affecting each other's situation as they go along...

I'd love to be able to run something like that. However, I think the amount of time and energy required for administration (by me) might be far more than I'm willing or able to provide. If the revenue from the game reaches the point when I can do it as a full time job, then we'll try it out. ("Revenue? What revenue?" Stop freaking out -- it's just a joke.)

I am hoping that some players will prefer to be "character actors" - running several characters who aren't "proper" PCs: the mysterious druid, the barkeeper, the prince, the villain. As a result, the main party will be in the more typical 3-7 person range.

I have the theory that then the DM's role will more often be that of referee, rather than referee _and_ source of conflict. If the bad guy figures out what the secret plan is, it's got nothing to do with what the DM knows, just that the bad guy really was clever. Also, the "NPC's" can be more 3-dimensional, with more personal effort being put into them, and on several occasions, players won't know if they're interacting with a DM mouthpiece, or with another player.

In terms of DM's "cpu time", I'd like to think that players running more of the story characters would make for less work for the DM day-to-day, but surely that will be offset by getting information to and from more people. But overall, I'm optimistic that this would give more of the DM's personal attention to your character, and a better story, than if we had one big 12 character party. In addition, some people might find playing occasionally-occurring characters easier on their schedules than striving to send an update every day.

Which brings us to player's absence, or at least nonresponsiveness. I like the idea of "phasing", partly because it reminds me so much of Vaarsuvius's conveniently appearing familiar in Order of the Stick. I recall treating absent people in tabletop games in much the same way.

My concern is that "absence" in a blog game is bound to be more stilted, because of the time dilation. Not being around for a 4 hour game session makes it easier to elide the character away; if someone is out sick for a day right in the midst of their character rescuing the rest of the party from the mind flayer's clutches, it's hard to throw them into hibernation. Perhaps this would work, if every day (or at least every week) of gameplay had some closure. If every fight were concluded in one day, then having someone phase out could work, while having someone phase out mid-battle would be hard to manage.

It seems to me that this is one of the tradeoffs of the blog (or online, non-live) format. If the players are willing to give up some of the control of their character, the game can move along faster. If you give up some of the granularity of the combat process, then the combat can be resolved in a few days, rather than a few weeks. If alternatively you accept that when you're absent, your character will have an "understudy" representing you, then the game won't be halted waiting for people.

But these aren't tradeoffs for me as much as they're tradeoffs for y'all. What do you think -- what do you want to happen to your character when you're unavailable? How specific do you want to make your combat decisions?

2005-09-30T06:22:00.000-04:00

Next hot topic: dialogue.

It is my impression (and you can correct me if I'm wrong) that many of the prospective players here are fans of dialogue, character interaction, and the game as a vehicle for producing an interesting story.

On the other hand, part of the history and nature of D&D is rolling dice to determine winners and losers in combat -- noble barbarians fighting an evil dragon, and you get to BE a barbarian! And you could argue that by making the combat sequences the most important part of the game, as well as the most character-choice driven, the action becomes more engaging than in any movie, even Rocky. (Although a good soundtrack counts for a LOT.)

However, I think that the detailed combat in D&D doesn't suit the blog format very well (because the time slowdown becomes acute, because you lose the fun of rolling dice, because for all that player control, most rounds boil down to either "I hit him again" or "I run away",...) Also, it's virtually impossible to stick to the round-by-round system and give players the freedom of choice they deserve without them all having a copy of the Players Handbook, which is way outside my "you don't have to know the rules" policy.

So there are really several issues. First, what should the balance be between dialogue/story, puzzles and other "nonthreatening" challenges, and combat? Like I said, my impression is that lots of people would like to have their characters make interesting decisions and interact with each other and the world around them, and spending months resolving a fight with a bunch of orcs would be a drag.

Second, how will dialogue work in an online format? Can we make it work better than serial monologues?

Third, how will combat work in an online format? Can we streamline it so it doesn't take forever, while still keeping it player-driven?

Note that I said "online format" and not "blog". I don't think we need to limit ourselves to blogs, and if it's feasible to use something like openrpg, or less exotically, an IRC or other chat method for dialogue, then I'm all for trying it out. Live-action dialogue faces the issue of different time zones, but I think it might work some of the time.

Alternatively, a sort of retroactive editing is possible: one person sends what they guess will be their side of the conversation, the second person intersperses comments where they would, and the first person then revises their side so it looks nice. (I'm completely borrowing this idea from Dr. Strangelove). That could give satisfactory results.

A point worth mentioning is that, although a lot of dialogue will be with NPCs, the DM as adjudicator is unnecessary for dialogue. Two or more players can chat in character any way they like, whether I'm aware of it or not. (That two or more players can chat out of character any way they like should be obvious.)

For streamlining combat, I'm all for people describing their combat plan in exciting detail, and then offering some idea of when they'll want to re-evaluate. For example:

Trinffi, Slayer of Vampires: I slide under the table and kick the filthy Uruk in the groin. Then I jump over him, split-kicking his two buddies. A couple of deft chops later to clean up, and I expect to be surrounded by unconscious grunts.

If any of them manage to lay a hand on me, I'll be faced with the sickening thought that these guys may be more dangerous than they look, and I'll backflip out of there, kicking one of them in the chops as I go.

For a high enough level character, that's one D&D combat round, but to a first level character, the exact same description is good for about 3 or 4 rounds, and it makes clear that if the character gets hit even once, they'll withdraw out of harm's way. It's also possible to have a "standing order" that for any combat, your character is by default willing to stand and fight until they get, for example, three likely hits away from death.

If I get posts like that regularly, many a combat could be resolved in one day.

2005-09-29T21:00:00.000-04:00

There's been a fair bit of discussion about starting at 1st level, so I'd like to address some of the concerns.

Starting at 1st level appeals to me for a lot of reasons. The list of spell choices is more quickly digestible, the character's stories are developed together rather than apart, and it fits in with the vision I have of a more Renaissance/beginning of history feel for the campaign.

The biggest issue with starting at 1st level, as Scott said, is that the number of hit points you have is perilously close to the amount of damage a typical weapon does. (This is a "feature" of D&D, and I believe it's a holdover from its wargaming roots.) Here's how I plan to mitigate this. First, as Fabio mentions, some challenges the players face will be intellectual, rather than combative. I know there's at least a few players that would prefer more puzzles and dialogue and less combat, especially if it slows down the game. More on this later. Second, as Fabio has also mentioned, the "critical hit" rule is the bane of PCs. I will introduce a rule along the lines that anything with less than 4 HD (or under 4th level) can't make a critical hit. Thirdly, I encourage the players to play their characters, particularly at the beginning, recognizing that getting a knife in the ribs could easily kill anyone, so they should try to avoid being within arm's reach of anyone ornery with a weapon.

As part of the incentive, I'm going to award experience based on obstacles overcome. So, if there was a band of goblins in the road, and you sneak around them or bribe them, you get the same experience as if you defeated them in combat. (There's a catch: if you run into the goblins again later, you don't get experience for them again, even if you do fight them the second time.)

Lastly, this ties into Dr. Strangelove's question about the lethality of the game. While I have some absolutely surreal ideas that I would _love_ to try out for ensuing adventures if the whole party dies, I don't really expect that to happen. I don't want to dismiss the possibility of character death entirely, but I have a hard time setting up a situation where a character is likely to die unless I know they'll have access to being brought back. If the characters don't put themselves in deadly situations, they won't die. (In order to preserve dramatic tension, I won't specify where I consider the line to be between "easy fight" and "deadly situation".)

2005-09-29T20:15:00.000-04:00

In order to include it in the conversation, here's my sister's email in response to my original "I'm starting a bloggy D&D" post:

What's an NPC?
What's a PC?
If I don't know what an NPC or PC are can I still play?
If my character dies on the first day, can I get a new character?
Can I be Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Or Trinity? Or a combination of both
(Buffinity? Trinffy?) Can I have a baby panda sidekick?
Can I make anachronistic references to television shows and movies?
As we go through the dungeon, can the map of where we've been be revealed?
Preferably with 3-D topography and interactive hot links to particular
events?

Skipping the first two questions, my answers were yes and yes (although I don't think it'll be necessary), and then it got a bit hazy. (Regarding the last one, I'd _love_ to have that, but I don't want to promise more than I can deliver on. Let's say it's on the planning list.) Perhaps the best question for discussion is the "Can I make anachronistic references to television shows and movies?" Or, to put it another way, what's the tone for the game?

The conventional wisdom is that it's better to have a properly immersive gameworld, where characters aren't named after pop stars and a dragon's last words are not "I shoulda had a V8." But I don't want to be a culture Nazi and correct people's Shakespearean -- I cannot come up with a more effective way to make players run away from a game. And although the original idea might be a joke, I think an elf named Trinffi whose purpose in life is to slay undead, particularly vampires, and can do crazy spin kicks, is the beginnings of a fine character.

My preference is for people to take on board the idea that their characters are really in the game world, and not talking out through the fourth wall at the audience. However, I can't imagine prohibiting players from commenting on the game in their own voice, if they want to -- on dndblog.powerblogs.com, character's speech is generally in quotes, while player's comments (and occasionally player or character "thoughtbubbles") are clearly distinct from the characters.

Furthermore, I rather like the wit involved in manipulating one's character into a situation for which the natural thing for them to say is "Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!"

So, how "serious" do we want the tone to be? Is there a line past which the friendly banter starts to detract from the storytelling, and if so where is it? I don't feel the need to set ground rules about what's "permitted" and what's not, but it would be good to have a common understanding of how much we plan to repress our natural tendency toward irony.

2005-09-29T12:53:00.000-04:00

First of all -- Woo hoo! Getting this much interest is more than I hoped for. Apparently there's more web-based leisure time available than I expected. :)

The posts have brought up several points, and I'm gonna try to describe further the things I've thought about, so we all have the same expectations, and I'll ask for more opinions about some of the issues that need some consensus or at least acceptance.

And since the conversation will therefore be wide-ranging, I'll try to split it up over several posts, so that comments to each post will be more specific to the same topic. Of course, I read it all, so don't worry about waiting to comment about character background because I haven't started a post about it.

Okay, first regarding campaign setting. (This hasn't been the source of the most discussion, but it does deserve to get fleshed out.) For starters, the world will be very stereotypically D&D like, in the sense that the technology will look remarkably medieval, magic items and spellcasters will be relatively commonplace, elves and dwarves live a long time and tend to hang out in forests and mountains respectively, etc. I'm happy with the fictional polytheism of 3rd edition D&D, if you're interested in the clergy, but I can adapt to someone's favorite pantheon if they've got one. I won't, however, have Warriors of Odin adventuring with a Follower of Ra to recover St. Cuthbert's Mace from the foul minions of Cthulhu. One (or, if you're willing to help with the backstory for it, two) major religion at a time, please.

I lean towards the "from the inside out" school of setting design, in the sense that I'd like to establish the locale the characters live in first, and worry about bigger stuff (world geography, etc.) later as necessary. That said, my plan is to have a wide range of player-driven choice of where you want to go fairly early in -- you could go northeast to the borderlands, or just a little ways south to a neighboring village, or decide you're interested in something else altogether, for example. (And there won't be any particularly "right" or "wrong" choice.) So my idea of "starting small" is still rather largish.

However, details of the start I'm deliberately still vague about, because I want character stories to come from the players, and then we can figure out the sort of place that these folks would meet. I want people to have as complete freedom as possible in choosing their character, and then adopting the world to a sensible one for those characters.

As most of you know, I'm one of those people that thinks too much about, for example, how politics and technology might develop in a world with magic, or various humanoid species, or any of the many things that'll make this a fantasy role playing game. But I don't want to jump the gun and build a beautiful internally consistent world that doesn't accommodate the kind of character you want to play. But as we develop characters, you can be sure that the world will get more specific around them.

Which brings me to a question we should resolve before the adventure starts, so I'll put that in the next post.

2005-09-28T19:28:00.000-04:00

Low Level Parties

Gm'ing low level peons is easy. Just follow the following two rules, if possible:

1. Emphasize role playing and puzzle solving. They can get XP's without too much danger.

2. Fill out the group with NPC's. Remember: safety in numbers. Makadea (my blog) started with five people and is now at six. The only casualty was triggered by a player dropping from the game.

2005-09-27T23:47:00.000-04:00

Could it really be that Bob has the inclination to get this blog on the road? Shocking. The eighth world wonder. Truly amazing.

My own 2 cents is that a party of 1st level characters is rough in the blog format. From a players perspective, I've always felt it's just too damn easy to die at 1st and 2nd level. Also, it's difficult to have as rich a character background as you might want (I mean really, a 1st level character hasn't really done anything). Also, arcane spellcasters are at a serious disadvantage with very few spells (which run out quickly), and so few hit points. When you're playing a table game, that's overcome by the fact that you're up into 3rd level after a few sessions. With a blog, however, it takes over a year. Just check out Fab's game -- 15 months and we're only 3rd level. I'd say start at 4th level if you want to run a "lower level" campaign to start out. A band of 10 orcs or a couple of ogres still pose a serious threat to such a party, people don't die so fast, and people can do a bit more with their own character development coming in. I've also found in my years of roll playing, blog or not, that it's nice for the DM and the campaign if the PCs have a bit of history to them that the DM can work into the plot line.

In terms of players, too many will slow down the pace of game play and make you frustrated if you're really thinking about posting 1 move a day. Players get frustrated easily (ask me, I know!) when you make actions or post dialoge on their behalf because they were too busy with work or family to get on the blog. Having people make cameos as NPCs might be interesting, but probably impractical from the perspective of managing the pace of game play unless you really find the right mix of people.

2005-09-27T15:41:00.000-04:00

Trollkien Lives!!

I thought this blog was deader than the old Sledgehammer show. But I love Bob's idea for another blog related game. Scott and Jacob both participate in a blog game I run called Makadea - Land of Adventure. Can you guess who is who?

Here my $.02 -

Having people not even know their stats is a good thing for many starting gamers. Second, recruitment is important. Get people you know who read daily and are good at email. I can say that Scott and Jacob both like to write and it helps the game. Also learn which people are flakes and don't wait for them. I'm a little lax on that last issue, but it's a good policy.

GM comment for the day: I thinks are over rated and annoying.

2005-09-26T19:33:00.000-04:00

I am planning to run a D&D campaign through a blog. Yes, like the one at dndblog. My plan is to mimic that blog, while adopting some policies that I hope will make the new blog exciting and accessible to more people, who might not be as diehard as the dndblog folks. This will be an experiment, and if some ideas really don't work as well as I'd hoped, I'll fall back on the way Scott does things in the dndblog.

And while I was thinking about all the cool stuff I hoped to do, and thought about how I should arrange it, it occurred to me that if I don't get people on board to play it, it won't much matter whether I think it's cool or not.

So, before my creative attempts spiral out of control, I'd like to hear from you what you'd like in a D&D campaign run over the web.

I'm assuming that players will want a game that delivers a lot of entertainment and only a small time commitment on their part. I'm also trying to offer a game with a different experience than, say, playing Everquest, since players could do that instead if they wanted to. I'd like to use the advantages of the online blog format, and minimize the effect of the disadvantages.

Here are the key ideas of the blog I was thinking about:

Gameplay Structure

Every day in real life, a D&D turn goes by. So everybody has a day to post what their character does, and they can be confident that when they check the website the next day, they'll be able to see the results of their last post and post again. (Obviously, there will be hiatuses, when the DM [me] is on vacation or something like that. But this is the normal scheme of things.)
If a player doesn't post during that day, the DM will assume their character behaves typically for that turn, and will role-play that character as appropriately as he can.
A player doesn't need to know the D&D rules at all. If you want to give me a description of what you want your character to be like, I'll generate stats for such a character. If you describe the feats of derring-do your character takes each turn, I'll interpret them in game terms in order to decide the result. (This option requires faith that the DM is interpreting the rules fairly and consistently.)
I would like to provide the opportunity for less-active players (or players that don't want to be tied down to one character) to play "bit parts" and other characters that would otherwise be NPCs. The adventuring party doesn't know, when they run into a goblin king, if the DM or someone else is running him. (In these situations, the DM can step out of the action, and simply referee the interaction between characters.)

These are ideas about the structure of the game, and they're designed to make the "burden" of playing the game as light as possible. If you just want to be involved for a week or two, that's fine: you can take over whatever NPCs the party is running into. If you don't want to dig through the books and figure out what the right feat is for you, don't worry about it, and when you describe yourself as hacking and slashing left and right, the DM will make sure you get feats that make you hack and slash most effectively. And regardless, the action of playing the game is simple: every day you check the blog, post what your character does for the next little while, and then you don't have to check the blog again until tomorrow. And if you miss a day or two, no big deal -- your character won't stand there like a dummy.

Campaign Setting

Of course, people will also have opinions about the story and background of the campaign -- is this in some particular setting that they already know about, is it significantly different from the setting described in the D&D books, does the DM hate paladins, etc. I don't want to give the impression that the above ideas are written in stone, but in terms of setting, I'm even more flexible. If some idea here seems stupid or not something you'd be happy with, please let me know, because D&D is in some sense collaborative storytelling, and players won't play their parts if they think the background and descriptions of the world they're in is lame. And who can blame them?

I would like to run a D&D 3.5e campaign, with as few changes to the general background as possible, so all the usual classes, races, spells, etc. are there, and if you see something in the books, you can be pretty sure it's in this campaign. (There may be weird and wonderful stuff later on, but I'm in favor of starting basic first.) I probably can't help tweaking a few things, but it'll be things like making monks less common, not completely eliminating them. That's not to say they'll be insignificant changes (if you're a monk, it'll be harder to find someone to train you to get a new level), but they won't be flat-out "no you can't do that" changes. Unless you're trying to game the system. :)

I'd like to borrow liberally from many sources. If you've played D&D for a long time, you'll find some of the locations eerily familiar ("Here we are, in this Keep, which is on the Borderlands..."), but hopefully not so familiar that you'll know where the traps are. Some of the places and people might remind you of historical figures. Hopefully not hokey "and it turns out that Lisa, the princess you rescued, is posing for a portrait by the royal painter, Leonardo" vignettes. Instead, I hope that sometimes it'll become evident that the moody noble youngster just might be as clever and doomed as Hamlet, or that the Thieves' Guild is operating very much like Al Capone's mob did.

I'd like to be "realistic" (a dangerous word in D&D). By that I mean, if someone asks "what are the dwarves eating, if they live in the mountains?" I want to have an answer. If the characters don't know the answer, they should be able to go find out, and the answer shouldn't be a lame one like "dwarves come from the rock, and get their sustenance magically from being in touch with the stones, except for the dwarf characters, who have to eat like regular people."

I have some more specific ideas, like decentralizing the role of elves and making "halflings" more like hobbits and less like Gypsies. I think I'd like to set everything in Greyhawk, except make the different regions have accents and cultures more closely mimicking the real world. Another background idea I have is that while many settings are set at a sort of "twilight" or "dark ages" period of history (the White Wolf RPGs are particularly end-of-the-world type settings), I'd like to maybe be in more of a "dawn of time" or "renaissance" period, where there's lots to explore, the cultural institutions are still in development, and there's generally a more optimistic feeling.

Also, I'd like to start PCs off at 1st level. I know a lot of experienced players don't like that, but it seems to me that it's easier to come up with PC background if there isn't that much background to come up with, and low-level characters aren't limited to fighting orcs and goblins and giant rats again and again if you're clever about it. But if you're convinced it wouldn't be fun, tell me why you think so.

Look and Feel

Lastly, in between game structure and story setting, is the "dressing": how the webpage looks, what kind of pictures/sounds/etc are part of the story; in other words, what cool stuff do I hope to do to "enhance the experience?"

I'd like to make as much use of multimedia as I can: I've got lots of digital pictures I'd like to edit into game scenes and characters. I'd like to gain enough computer audio stuff to include cool sound effects like a bustling marketplace or the buzz of conversations in a tavern. But I plan to develop as I go -- it doesn't seem practical to me to develop a myriad of sights and sounds until there's actually proof that enough people want to play to make it a workable project.

Here's Where You Come In

So, tell me what you think. Am I way off base? Would you and all your friends come play on my proposed blog, if it weren't for the one-turn-a-day rule? Is a cobbled-together mishmash of a setting too clumsy, or would it be quirky and fun? What ideas are unworkable? Where I've been vague, what specific ideas do you crave? Are there ideas that spun off better ideas in your head?

Enough questions for you? Please give me some feedback, as I really do want to make a D&D blog that you'd love to play on, that you would get your non-D&D friends to look at. And maybe even try out.

2005-07-29T08:52:00.000-04:00

Maybe this is just too infantile to you, but I ran into a website called Medieval Zone and I nearly wept for joy. If only they needed a mathematics consultant...as it is, I'm going to have to wait until I win the lottery to buy all their stuff.

But maybe you just want to look at pictures of castles, or need links to medieval studies, or heraldry, or any of a number of subjects that someone who's reading a site named "Trollkien" might be interested. Then you should look at Castles on the Web, which offers a panoply of links that offers me more trollish delight than I can probably fit into a lifetime.

2005-04-11T20:41:00.000-04:00

Longer post coming. Right now I'm just trying to remind myself that once Barik stops and thinks about it, he's going to be confused and a bit curious about how Bishop and Drusilla can be related. (I have a lot more downtime than he does, so I figure things that occur to me should occur to him slower. Perhaps this is a conceit of mine that I have higher than a 10 Intelligence.)

2005-04-06T22:38:00.000-04:00

Behind the curtain...

Over time, I've grown less fond of using monsters straight out of the monster manual. What fun is it when the entire party already knows what a thing can do, just because you've faced it in another game (or, like the cat, succumbed to your curiousity and just looked it up. Go ahead, admit it. I won't tell.) I know it makes it difficult (though not impossible) to resist metagaming. Sure, sure, every so often I'll throw something in that's straight off the page from the 3.0 MM (the hill giiants, the zombies from the graveyard, and the shadows from the grave, for example) just to keep you guessing, but isn't it more realistic that you just don't know what kind of punch something packs? I mean really... it's not like any of the characters in the game (who started at 4th level) ever actually *encountered* these monsters before.

So it might surprise you that the skelatons you faced were ordinary skelatons, just not ordinary medium sized (CR 1/3) skelatons. No sir. I figured that warrior skelatons in death should reflect the might such creatures had in life, and (of course), there's the obvious fact that any one of the fighter types of the party could decimate a room full of skelatons without breaking a sweat. Still, a haunted and cursed Citidel should have it's fair share of skelatons, so what was a crafty DM to do?

Answer: use the template for Huge skelatons, but just make them medium sized. A room full of CR 2 skelatons seemed about right for seven 7th-8th level characters, and trading off 15' reach for better armor seemed like a pretty fair swap.

As for the mummies, they were mostly straight out of the 3.5e monster manual (which I do occassionally reference, just for kicks), with a few tweaks -- greater vulnerability to fire, for example.

On armor class...

I'd noticed the same thing just recently in a game were I play a straight 7th level fighter with a dex of 17. Until he'd found something magical, he wore breastplate armor since that optimized his AC (+5 armor, +3 dex), and since this fit the lead figure I had painted for him (which was arguably either super decked out breastplate, field plate, or full plate). Later, he found a suit of +1 full plate of shadows (+5 to hide checks), which I now affectionately refer to as my ambush armor. He's had the armor so long, it's become part of his persona. It can be a damn hot day, with nothing more exciting going on than shopping in the market and getting a tankard of ale, and he'll still wear that plate armor.

Now here's the interesting dilemma. My character recently came into possession of a +1 chain shirt. Wow, now that's a useful piece of equipment. At 8th level, with a dex of 18, there's only a 1 point difference between wearing a chain shirt and donning full plate. What will I do? Well, I've really not got much say in it... the character's trademark is the full plate armor. And, besides, what am I supposed to do, cart around 2 different lead figures? I don't think so.

2005-03-27T05:57:00.000-05:00

Well, as soon as I start worrying, the mummy fight resolves better than my wildest expectations.

However, now we've got a gas trap triggered by our golem -- currently the plan is to have everyone but Barik (me) and Linnam (Jacob) get out of the room and see if the two of us (with the golem) can get the goodies before we croak.

_If_ the gas takes a few rounds to spread through the room, then potentially we have a chance to get the golem to do it for us, and then get out without being exposed.

However, (a) ordering the golem around can be slow and clumsy, and (b) if the gas gets to us fast, we'll have to make saving throws anyway. A quicker strategy, with some guaranteed risk, is if Barik rushes in, grabs the stuff, and runs out again, holding his breath. Barik's saving throw against poison is pretty darn good (+12), so he's got a good chance, and no one else would be in immediate danger (ie, if Barik made his save, Linnam wouldn't have to save). Heck, the DM might even give him a circumstance bonus for holding his breath.

Thoughts?

2005-03-23T12:49:00.000-05:00

How well the current fight with mummies over on the blog goes depends on a wide variety of factors. One of them, as I mentioned there, is how what the DM reports as damage translates to actual damage. Another, somewhat related, is which mummies we're dealing with; the 3.0 edition mummies are considerably different from the 3.5 edition mummies, as far as I can tell. (I'm assuming the description in the 3.5 System Reference Document is standard for 3.5, and I've got a 3.0 ed Monster Manual). One of them has "resistance to blows", in addition to damage reduction of 5. The newer edition only has damage reduction of 5, but has heaps more hp and strength to make up for it. Also, the 3.5 version of "vulnerability to fire" is less of a weakness than the 3.0 edition.

Of course, it's just as likely that Scott's using some mutant blend, or his own version of mummies. The last skeletons were home-grown, I'm pretty sure -- I don't think they could have taken or dished out as much damage otherwise, damage reduction vs. slashing weapons or not.

For what it's worth, I think these mummies are doing too much damage to be 3.0 version mummies.

Also, just for anyone who's wondering, Barik's next desperate tactic is to fall back, piling on the oil and keeping the golem beating on them until they burn out.

2005-03-10T06:02:00.000-05:00

3.5 (and presumably, 3rd) edition armor rules:

The "maximum dexterity bonus" restrictions on armor, and the armor check penalties, make for some unexpected results in the armor class of various armors. If anyone has a comment or further observation about this, please let me know.

For example, taking dexterity and armor bonuses together, the best (non-shield) armor class improvement is +9, either available from the lightest armor (and a _very_ dexterous person), or from the heaviest (and most expensive). But a +8 dex bonus is unlikely; let's take some more typical values:

For Barik, a dwarven ranger with 14 Dex (+2 bonus), he can get a +6 bonus from a chain shirt (and keep all his ranger skills, and suffer a -2 armor check penalty), or he can squeeze out a whopping +7 bonus from several (but not all) of the heavier armors, until he can get a +9 from the full plate, if he ever found any. So, the first ac bonus comes at the price of (at least) a -4 armor check penalty and his ranger skills that require light armor. The bonus up to +9 costs a -6 armor check penalty.

Or, you know, he could get _any_ old shield, and get the +1 ac bonus for another -1 on the armor check (or +2 for -2 on the armor check). Cost of a shield: slows down archery, and prevents two-handed fighting. Unless you use the shield as the off-hand weapon...

Summary: shields seem to be completely worth it for the bonus they provide at minimum cost.

For a +3 dex bonus player, the calculus is very similar: they get a +7 with a chain shirt, and the only possible improvements are +8 with a breastplate or +9 with full plate, both with the same armor check penalties as Barik. For +4 dex, only the full plate provides better ac than the chain shirt, and for +5 dex and above, the lighter armors get as good as a chain shirt, but their best possible armor class doesn't get any better with higher dexterity until a dex bonus of +8, when the padded armor is as good as full plate, with nowhere near the drawbacks.

Compare with increasing one's strength bonus, which always increases attack and damage bonuses. (Okay, there's a limit to the bonus for archery with composite bows.)

In the Players Handbook, fighters are mentioned as typically wearing heavy armor: is this because they are expected to have low dexterity? That's counterintuitive for me, but most of the medium armors only make sense if your dexterity bonus is +1 or less.

2005-03-01T10:44:00.000-05:00

Hey, sorry for neglecting this for so long.

In case it isn't obvious, I would definitely counsel Slthm (I mean, your spellcaster who's low on ammo) to preserve the ammo and not kill off a retreating enemy. Unless the enemy is carrying some ridiculously useful thing, the only tangible benefit to killing them off is experience points (if the DM doesn't give full xp except for defeated monsters). Since there's a real risk of dying before having the chance to use those experience points, my priority would be to save resources for survival, and not worry about the XP that get away.

(Incidentally, I was thinking that a DM could adopt the following XP reward scheme: the party gets XP for surviving their first encounter with _any_ foe. You ran away? Kudos for not sticking around like dummies. You sneaked passed it? Excellent use of stealth.

Where's the rub? You only get XP for your _first_ encounter. If you run into that critter again, then no more XP. And while you probably won't run into the minotaur guarding a treasure at the bottom of the labyrinth too often (maybe once coming in, and once coming out), you probably _will_ run into a certain hobgoblin raider, or an orc wizard with a skull-mask...and won't those recurrent characters feel even more exasperating when you _know_ they won't boost your character's stats, no matter what you do to them?)

So, from the points you've made regarding "beating the bushes", it sounds like _now_, in a dungeon situation with a somewhat noisy party, sending a reasonably tough guy out ahead (and I was of course thinking Barik here, although right now the golem might be a useful if cloddish substitute) seems sensible. (I think we executed this idea in the crypts at the front door, to good effect.) I agree that the front person could be ambushed, but that's sort of the point: ambushing _part_ of a party doesn't put _all_ the party in a disadvantaged position, which is the goal of an ambush. If the ambushers are being shot with arrows by a pursuing party, they're going to have a harder time of it than if they immediately jumped into melee with everyone.

Perhaps more later.

2004-12-30T11:24:00.000-05:00

So here's the D&D tactic question for the day. Back at dndblog, my single class spell caster is seriously starting to run low on ammo - he unwisely used up a lot of his cool spells early in combat. He's got a few low level spells left but he has no idea how long tghe current dungeon crawl will take. Question: should he kill a retreating enemy, or save stuff for later? In this case, another party member has a magic weapon, which has unlimited juice, so I say save the ammo for later. Any thoughts?

2004-12-28T19:46:00.000-05:00

(Took me a while to remember my password over here-- and to remember how Blogger works!)

One other consideration: beating the bushes is relatively less useful when the party as a whole is moving along fairly quietly, with a long time between encounters-- so that the bad guys don't know to be keeping their eyes peeled, and the party as a whole could plausibly surprise enemies just by showing up. In a setting like the Citadel, where we're making all kinds of noise and conspicuously walked in the front door and all, it's much more likely that we're facing ambushes. Accordingly, a sufficiently tough or (less likely) a sufficiently sneaky scout can do relatively more good. They're there, they're in front of us, they know we're here; the only question is whether we'll know where exactly they are.

On the other hand, that greater usefulness is bought at the price of greater danger to the scout-- if they're out there waiting to ambush us, they can just as easily and happily ambush the point man.

2004-12-28T17:23:00.000-05:00

Is beating the bushes a good strategy? It's only good if your prior belief is that the bad guys/obstacles are not lethal. Let's say you have a mid-level party and you think the dangers ahead consist mostly of the occasional trap and hordes of low hit dice monsters. Then it's probably ok to send out the scout. A typical scout is either a ranger, theif, bard, barbarian or clever fighter type. They can definitely defend themselves from what they will encounter. In exchange for sucking up some damage, the "point guard" will provide valuable knowledge that will help the party efficiently use resources.

On the other hand, if you think the danger is more than enough for one person. Then don't beat the bushes. I would *never* willingly send out a point guard from a low level party.

I'd also add that the strategy is edition dependent. 3E/3.5E rules allow for some massive damage from low hit dice creatures/NPCS. A theif versus an orc with strength and feats who makes a triple crit with a large weapon is toast. IIRC, this was a lot less likely in 2E. Or consider running into quadrapeds who combine bite attacks with two claws. A theif who is beating the bushes, even mid level, might not live to tell the tale here. I guess this is the tendency of 3E/3.5E to dole out huge gobs of damage.

Rule of thumb: never send someone to beat the bushes unless they had at least 25 hit points an either some great stealth or good AC.

2004-12-19T13:51:00.000-05:00

D&D Strategy idea: suppose a party (just for example, the one on the blog) is in a fairly high risk but linear situation: like, say, we're heading toward the entrance to the citadel of light, but there's probably some ghoulies gonna jump out at us along the way.

Does it seem to be a good/bad idea to send one guy forward to "beat the bushes"? Points for this seem to be:

Party gets to choose the likely target, instead of having the magic users get smacked
Party's good ranged attacks can potentially be used along with good melee attacks
Attacks and traps that could affect several party members only get one

In addition, if the front guy can be sneaky, there's the chance of detecting ambushes, traps, et cetera before setting them off.

In the negative category is really only one big one that I can see, with its various corollaries:

Increases chance of the party getting separated.

Now, getting separated can work out very badly. And this scheme definitely opens the possibility that the point man could fall down a pit, or get surrounded, or otherwise spirited away from the party.

But realistically, how often is that going to happen when it wasn't going to happen already? If a wall falls down between the party and the lead, it might have been to cut off a retreat -- in which case it's not such a bad idea to have people on the other side who can maybe rescue you -- or it was to cut the party in half, maybe with someone under the wall.

So, now that the blog party is walkin' the halls of the Citadel of Light, howzabout Barik (or someone) tries to tiptoe ahead and play scout (not when we're up against doorways, but for those long halls)?

2004-11-11T09:36:00.000-05:00

If there were any regular readers of this website, I'd apologize to them for not putting anything up in so long. Oops, there's Scott, so somebody's watching... :)

Anyhow, I was just looking through the Standard Reference Document when I should've been working, and came up with the following fun facts that make me feel more impressed about Barik:

Barik has a 50/50 chance to know any basic (but not common knowledge) fact about: aberrations, caverns, oozes, spelunking; lands, terrain, climate, people; animals, fey, giants, monstrous humanoids, plants, seasons and cycles, weather, or vermin.

He's got a 50/50 chance to track (checking each mile) a lone orc walking through a stream. On a moonless night. If the orc's walking on normal firm ground, Barik would have the same 50/50 chance to follow the trail on the same overcast night even if it was 2 days old, and it had been raining for three hours.

I also note that Barik can take a Survival check to get a Fortitude save bonus to avoid suffering the ill effects of inclement weather (not the slowing down, but colds and stuff.) His fortitude save is pretty good, so this wouldn't be significant except that for every point he exceeds the check by, he can give the bonus to another member of the party. Something to remember the next time we're slogging through the rain. (If we're standing still, like when we're in camp, the bonus is +4 instead of +2.)

2004-07-10T05:01:00.000-04:00

So I had a bad case of insomnia (odd for me, for a weekend), so decided to check out what was new on Trollkin. Not much, apparently. Still, there were a few posts I hadn't read, and since I'm not yet ready to go back to bed figured I'd weigh in on the "recent" topics.

In terms of mounted combat, war horses having a "bite" attack has always struck me as odd. The hooves rearing does make sense, and anyone who has seen King Arthur will agree that somebody's taking damage from the horses. I suppose you could argue these knights all have the Trample feat, but stil...

As a rule of thumb (house rule), I don't allow horse mounts to attack other riders in my campaign. Wolves and worgs are exceptions, because of the way they attack, and also since the latter are as intelligent as any normal human fighter.

As far as using a Power Attack on a Coup-de-Gras, I don't see what the problem with that would be. The CdG requires only a full action to complete (no multiple attacks)...I don't see any reason you can't use Feats in addition to the CdG (Power Attack, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, etc. etc.)

2004-03-31T09:00:00.000-05:00

From the d-n-dblog: (The 3.5 PH at least just says you get a critical hit on a coup de gras, but you have to roll the damage.)

I wonder if there's a "hole" in the rules here. A rogue gets sneak attack damage on a coup de gras, which is an "optional extra damage" option. By the same token, it sorta seems like you should be allowed to use Power Attack for a coup de gras. Of course, since you're guaranteed a hit, it seems like a good munchkin would say "I take -20 from the attack bonus to add +20 to damage" (or more, if you're using two hands). That'd sure make those coups against sleeping dragons a lot more effective.

I've done only rudimentary research, but I can't find a resolution of this issue in the Main D&D FAQ or the 3.5 Main FAQ. I suspect the answer is something somewhat lame like "technically, Power Attack can only be used for melee attacks, and a coup de grace doesn't involve a melee attack". That is, the phrase "deliver a coup de grace with a melee weapon" is not equivalent to "make a melee attack". Those clever D&D rules lawyers.

2004-03-29T23:53:00.000-05:00

As he sleeps, Barik dreams happy dreams of Boots of Striding and Springing, and a Giant Eagle for a mount, or sometimes a hippogriff...and a +5 chain shirt. :)

Heh. I'm not sure Linnam would like flying. But he happily dreams of +5 mithral shirt of Silent Moves, a Ring of Jumping, Gloves of Swimming and Climbing, and Goggles of night.

2004-03-29T15:21:00.000-05:00

Replying to Jacob's kibitzing about mounted combat:

Personally, my first instinct was that the whole "directing the warhorse to fight" thing was dirty pool -- I mean, you don't see the horses going at each other in Ivanhoe or whatever. The horses rear up sometimes and windmill their front hooves, but they never hit anything, as far as I can recall.

I can totally imagine some nasty robber baron knocking over some poor peasant with his horse, and maybe the peasant could get whacked with the horse's hooves. I kinda figure the trample feat would cover that, though.

So having horses (that you're riding on) fight just seems weird. With wolves and other possible mounts, it makes more sense, but even then, the idea of a full attack is kinda weird, and surely various feats like Improved Trip or Improved Grapple shouldn't work as well if the mount isn't free to roll around or use both forelegs at the same time. And lions have Pounce, where they can do damage with their hind claws, which seems like the rider should have to make another Ride check for the Leap or something.

I guess that if you were going to go with the "everybody can attack anybody" concept, you can pursue the notion that a round is a very busy 6 seconds, and that's enough time for critters to rear up and fall back down, so a horse can rear up and clock an opposing rider with its hooves, then fall to earth and its rider can poke a sword in the other mount's ribs. This would work a lot easier if the horses are in a T-shape, rather than head-to-head, but horses aren't 5 feet across either, so we can just assume that's part of the simplification of the combat system.

[Hm. I see now that the example DCs given in the 3rd ed. DMG for some skills don't match up with the DCs in the v.3.5 PH. Sigh. Why didn't they just call it version 4 and put me out of my misery? Interesting thought for later: D&D is like Open Source Development.]

Anyhow, the DC to get a combat-ready mount to fight in addition to your attack is 10, the same DC it takes to tie a firm knot or find out the current gossip -- in other words, something any old peasant can do right at least half the time. You can view this in two ways. The more charitable approach is to suppose that "battle-ready" means the mount is like a guard dog, and will practically fight on its own anyway, so directing them to attack one target while you attack the other is a piece of cake (maybe it bites the leg of the rider or something). The more bitchy approach, which I naturally favor on principle, is that the DC for this is obviously too low, unless you put serious restrictions on what the mount's attack can be.

Such restrictions could include:
- the mount can only make a single primary attack, not a full attack
- the mount can attack with its teeth, but not an attack that requires its feet
- the mount can only attack other creatures on the ground, not mounted creatures
- the mount can attack with its feet, but such attacks can only be upon creatures at least one size category smaller than it
- the mount cannot make any special attacks (Improved Trip, Pounce, etc.)
- a mount provides its rider with cover from other mounts
- the mount can't attack in a way that the DM thinks is unfeasible.

The last one always applies, I suppose. I also wouldn't mind distinguishing horses (which essentially never bite in a combat way) from other mounts (I have no idea what a griffon would usually do.)

We are near two issues, one of which D&D developers have always tried to ignore and the other they've started to devote some energy to. The second issue is size: an itty-bitty rider should make little difference to a mount (would a red dragon really be much restricted because someone was on his back?), but a warpony with a fully armored dwarf on its back (for example) can't really be expected to do more than carry him around. Although D&D has all kinds of size modifiers and stuff, when it comes to this kind of thing, I think they're hoping to ignore it -- the little critter in each case isn't going to make that much difference to the battle, so why make an exception in the rules?

The other part, which D&D mostly abhors, is wound location and direction of attack. A wolf could easily bite at a rider's leg, but getting a horse to do damage with its hooves takes some gymnastics. And should a chain shirt's AC count for an attack on a leg? Dropping a rock on someone's head is a lot more likely to knock them out than throwing it at their chest. A knee-high fence between combatants shouldn't really offer much cover -- it's not like you're aiming at their feet. Should it be as useful (+4 to AC) as a chain shirt? Maybe if you crouch behind it -- but surely that would give a penalty to your attack bonus, no? Clearly, this starts a nightmare of complexity that is better left alone. There's no obvious place to draw the line.

From that perspective, 'twould be better to just accept the somewhat funny looking rules, and hope that the weird cases don't come up much -- either from DM/player choices (the current campaign mostly has mounts fighting each other, and riders fighting each other) or from strategic issues (if a mount can do damage to the mount, but the AC of a rider is generally too much for it, the "smart thing" is also the most "realistic").

2004-03-29T12:14:00.000-05:00

D&D 3rd ed. movement rates, post #1:
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First of all, I want to say that I think the folks behind the 3rd (and 3.5) edition did a very good job at including enough detail about moving around for it to be tactically important, without bogging down. The simplicity of the system is brilliant.

My interest in this started when (over on the d-n-d blog) we had some people running behind some people on horses. Actually, my interest started before that, because my character's a dwarf, for whom movement rates are an important consideration. Dwarves have the racial disadvantage of having the base movement of a small character (20'), without the advantages (or other disadvantages) of being small (+1 to hit and AC, +4 to hide, less weight capacity and smaller weapons). [Parenthetically, a dwarf's speed doesn't go down if he carries more or wears heavy armor, so with some weight on him, he essentially reverts to what other normal-sized characters are like with the same encumbrance.]

So, let's talk about human speeds first, and compare horses later. Rules summary: the normal character base move is 30', meaning a move action in combat moves you up to 30'. Small characters (and dwarves) have a base move of 20'. A character can take up to two move actions in a six-second round, or if the character is all-out running, they can go 4 times as fast (for a human, that's 120' in a round.) The time scaling of movement is ridiculously simple: if your base move is 30' in a round, in a minute you're going 300', and for longer periods you're traveling at 3 mph. (That's multiply by 10 for distance in a minute, and divide by ten and change units to mph for longer distances.) For the larger scales, you can hustle, which means you go twice as fast, for an hour before you start suffering ill effects, and you can run (four times as fast) for a minute (or a little more if you have a high Constitution, but more than 3 minutes is nigh impossible.) Note that normal combat is hustling, since you can make two moves in a round. One last wrinkle: if you have the Run feat, your run is 5x your base move, instead of just 4x.

Note that this conversion cheats just a little: it would be exact if there were 6000 feet in a mile. Since there are only 5,280 feet/mile, this means that the long-term rate of speed (even walking) is a little bit slower over an hour than over a few minutes. A convenient simplification, and I can't really argue it's not realistic: I certainly don't walk as fast when I'm going for hours. It does mean that if you're traveling for half an hour, a good munchkin should try to convince the DM to use the ft/min and multiply by 30, rather than the mph divided by 2. :)

So, how fast are D&D speeds relative to the real world? Well, 3 mph is a brisk walk, and the average person can walk that fast all day with no trouble (assuming good conditions). 6 mph (hustling) is a ten-minute mile; from personal experience I can say that an average/healthy person can do this for an hour, and an athletic person can keep up that pace for longer.

Modern marathon winners run 26.21 miles in a little over 2 hours, or about 12.4 mph; in 1900, the record was around 3 hours, or 8.7 mph. Lest you think your D&D character isn't up to snuff, note that all these running rates are with virtually no weight, while a D&D character can run this fast in (light) armor and carrying considerable weapons and equipment. In addition, barbarians have a 10' increase in base speed, so they can hustle at 8 mph; the Longstrider spell has the same effect, and other magic effects (haste, Boots of Striding and Springing) can double the base speed, so characters can run (in armor) nearly as fast as a marathon champion, with a little help. In addition, a D&D character can go for hours at this speed, although this requires taking nonlethal damage. (I think it's fair to argue that marathon runners take nonlethal damage too). For example, any human 1st level fighter can run for 4 hours at 6 mph; this amounts to finishing a marathon in a little over 4 hours, which most of us can only dream of.

What about the shorter distances and time frames? At this point, I think it's safe to say that all the record holders and star running athletes are the equivalent of "having the Run feat." With that in mind, until recently (1954, when Roger Bannister proved it could be done), running a mile in under 4 minutes was thought impossible. A 4 minute mile is 15 mph, or 440 yards/minute. A running D&D human travels at 400 yards/minute, and can only do it for a few minutes; not quite a 4 minute mile. With the run feat, however, a D&D human travels at 500 yards/minute; it would take a lot of Constitution and even more luck, but if they could keep up the pace, such a character could run a mile in just over 3 and a half minutes, which would crush the current world record of 3 min 44.39sec. The chances of that are miniscule; however, a character with a high Constitution could easily run for 2 minutes (1000 yards), walk for a minute (100 yards), then run again and reach a mile in just under 4 minutes 20 seconds. Not too shabby. A barbarian can run even faster, and a barbarian with the run feat is scary to think about: such a character could conceivably run for 2 minutes, walk for one, and then run again and complete a mile in 3 min 26.4 sec, and with a decent Constitution, this could be done with regularity.

The aforementioned "barbarian with the run feat" is outrageously fast: in the other cases D&D characters are seen to be "larger than life" but still in the ballpark of today's athletes, a character who can run 200' per round is a cut above that. This character runs at just over 11 yd/s=22.7 mph, and can keep it up for at least a minute. In comparison, Michael Vick has run 40 yards in 4.25 seconds: that's 9.41 yd/s = 19.25 mph. Ben Johnson holds the world record for 50m at 5.55 seconds, which is 9.91 yd/s = 20.27 mph. As far as running for a whole minute goes, the world record for 500m (indoor) is very close to 1 minute; 500 m in 1 minute would be 9.12 yd/s = 18.65 mph. Conveniently, this would be 164' in a round: compare this with 150' (a human with the Run feat) or 160' (a barbarian without the Run feat). Pretty close, I think.

Considering the simplicity of the move system in D&D, they have done a marvelous job at making characters comparable to Olympians -- the peak of human ability, without overdoing it too much. As far as the 20' movement rate for Small characters and dwarves, I don't think there's anything in reality to compare it to -- it seems sensible that short-legged characters would move slower, and beyond that, comparing speeds with track and field records of people suffering from dwarfism seems just wrong.

Next post, I'll put up a little bit of background on horse speeds, and compare the D&D horse to the real world a little bit.

2004-03-29T09:56:00.000-05:00

A mechanics-kibbitzing question.

Two mounted characters are in combat, which means four combatants total, including both mounts.

It's clearly envisioned in the rules that everyone can attack anyone, in any combination.

The wolf can leap at Grell and maul him, while the orc simultaneously swings his ax at Grell.

The wolf can attack Grell and the orc can attack Darkstar.

The wolf and orc can both attack Darkstar.

And vice-versa, in all permutations.

Now, I've never engaged in mounted combat. I've never even seen an SCA joust. But this seems odd to me. I can't envision a horse rearing up and striking an opposing *rider* with its hooves at all, much less the horse doing so while its own rider strikes *downward* at the opposing mount. It doesn't seem to me that everyone is actually within melee distance of everyone; in particular, it seems unlikely to me that the mounts can melee-strike the opposing riders other than with a bite. It takes measurable time for a horse to rear or a wolf to leap, time that interferes with what its rider can do in the meantime.

Seems plausible to me that a mounted combatant facing an *unmounted* one could strike the latter using sword, hooves, and bites-- but that mounts should have vertical-reach restrictions that prevent them from striking opposing riders.

This, by the way, is *not* a current-campaign complaint; it's a question about the rules themselves. Whaddaya think?

2004-03-29T08:53:00.000-05:00

More attentive than Linnam, you mean? I'm sure Spade would make the best ranger that badgerdom has to offer. (Hmm...maybe the badger picture needs a little Robin Hood hat...)

As he sleeps, Barik dreams happy dreams of Boots of Striding and Springing, and a Giant Eagle for a mount, or sometimes a hippogriff...and a +5 chain shirt. :)

2004-03-28T19:33:00.000-05:00

For what it's worth, Spade seems more attentive as well. :-)

2004-03-26T06:32:00.000-05:00

I'm fine with just leaving the training at that -- maybe there can be more discussion if Linnam's next level is also ranger. There isn't any pre-existing apprenticeship scheme that I know of.

Besides, Linnam mouths off way too much for that to ever work. :)

2004-03-25T14:42:00.000-05:00

I'm happy to call it a day on ranger-training, too, though Linnam will continue to watch Barik closely and try to get some practice in (as happened after the second hobgoblin fight, up in the mountains).

There's been no mention yet of the formal relationship of Barik and Linnam hereafter. Maybe it's just "Linnam's grateful." But if there are dwarvish-rangering rules according to which Linnam is now Barik's student or apprentice or Grasshopper or whatever, I'm happy to play that out, too. (Either way, Linnam now hops to attention a bit more when Barik gives an order.)

2004-03-21T19:36:00.000-05:00

Indeed, wouldn't you like to know of the fantastic and ignominious deeds of Strae the Red Avenger and Spade, the Badger from the Ninth Circle of Hell whileyou're all out on watch. In fact, Spade has strange and powerful magiks which give him control over Earth, while Strae has powers of the four Winds!

Inquiring minds want to know...

2004-03-19T05:57:00.000-05:00

Of course, if we want to continue the conversation about the ways in which orcs are a blight on the land, I'm happy with that too. I brought up this idea of having this run parallel to the d-n-dblog, so that out-of-order conversations or other OOS comments can be put here and not interrupt the main storyline. If you guys think that's a good idea, let me know. I have everyone's address except John's, so I can invite the other folks if I can get his email.

2004-03-17T18:30:00.000-05:00

I'll bet Strae the Red Avenger and Spade, the Badger from the Ninth Circle of Hell go out and have epic adventures while the rest of us are sleeping or sitting around on watch.

2004-03-17T18:29:00.000-05:00

Hm. I reckon this is probably plenty of "learning how to do the orcs extra damage" to justify the notion that Linnam's learning some of the ways of the Stone Brothers from Barik. I'm happy to continue the discussion of tactics -- maybe we should have this blog as a kind of "idle conversation" section for the characters, where we can discuss how we want to arrange and fight and stuff in general terms. Inserting that kind of discussion in the main line can be either time-consuming or confusing (since there are important events, like encounters, that take precedence). But since we've had a few days of riding around together, we can assume we've had some "chats", and put the less significant ones here.

2004-03-14T18:33:00.000-05:00

"Indeed, Bishop-- is not the nature of our quest to avoid that the body of that horde of an army to the north, and to lop off its head instead?

"We will not typically all be able to stand in a circle 'round a leader and take turns hitting it. But as many of us can, should. 'twas the failure to do that that cost us so dearly at Tower 8."

2004-03-14T10:27:00.000-05:00

"Hm. Bishop, you raise interesting points. Though it may seem that in killing one leader another always rises to take his place, this cannot continue for long -- the vast majority of orcs, thankfully, are brutes with no mind for leadership or courage of their own. We have noticed the leaders because it is they who have been the most dangerous, and for this reason, I think we should concentrate our efforts on them. Like you say, they are hard to kill; in addition, they are more capable of fearsome blows. I think we would be wise to neutralize them first, because they pose the greatest threat.

"A typical orc can only give trouble to someone of our stature if he's lucky, while Grell, for example, can lay waste to many such orcs in a trice. I myself can often kill several before they have a chance to strike a blow. If we could attack them freely without running afoul of one of their overseers, that would be ideal, but generally one must deal with some of both.

"Another consideration, especially since our goal is not just to kill orcs but to proceed with the mission, is that often we may not be able to obliterate the entire opposing side. We may have to be happy with setting them to flight and continuing onward. In this, we should concentrate on the leaders, because when the leader falls, the troops may falter, but the leader, lost in the rage of battle, cares not a whit for losing half or more of his troops.

"Only rarely will we really have much choice in this: if the leaders are mounted and charge ahead, we have little choice but to face them first, and shooting arrows at the troops behind them is folly. If, on the other hand, the orcs are besieging us with missile fire, we probably won't be able to pick out leaders as targets. Given the opportunity, I would like to sneak up behind a body of troops, and decimate the main body before the leaders can react, but this would be a lucky circumstance indeed.

"When they are in our midst, and one may strike at either a grunt or a leader, I would think that the leader is more of a threat to our party and our cause. An exception may be if the leader is so well armored that nothing seems to do any damage, but perhaps then we should be running away, not fighting any of them.

"It is an interesting question. Do you have other thoughts on the subject?"

2004-03-13T14:42:00.000-05:00

At this point Bishop joins the conversation: "From what we've seen, the orcs are quite capable on capitalizing on the enemy when he is disorganized. They seem to have little regard for their own wounds, or their fallen bretheren. Their tactics and attitude are chaotic, but it seems somehow that the leaders are able to whip them up and focus their might. Like Taur'egk in the last battle. Or the seargants on the hilltop."

"However, when one leader falls, it seems the next one in the pecking order merely rises up and through sheer force of will takes command. Like the Axemaster. He charged in, fell in battle, and some other orc just took his place. In battle, are we better off to focus on those we think are leaders? These barbarian warriors are tough stuff, and die hard. The alternative would be to spread our attacks against the multitude, attempting to thin their ranks quickly before they can do much damage. It seems that one axe blow is as dangerous as another, and a dead orc can't wield his axe no matter how many commanders are left, if you catch my meaning."

2004-03-10T05:31:00.000-05:00

"First, they are a race used to hardship. They live in the places we would not care to visit. This means a nick here or a cut there, a lost finger or two, means little to them. With such injuries, a man or dwarf might well think it better to run away, heal his wounds, and come back to fight later -- for an orc, such thoughts only go through his mind if he's been struck with a blow that really hurts. A broken nose or foot, or a wound to the sensitive parts of the neck and upper back -- these will make an orc stop and think.

"Also, they are used to running away. Fight them in the open field, or in the sunlight, and they have a sense that this is not where they belong. There's a little technique the Stone Brothers use, in any fight in any sort of light...typically, there are all sorts of bits of shiny metal around -- your shield, your armor, your helmet, your axe -- so there are lots of dim glitters and reflections. If, right when you're going to strike, you can manage to aim some glint at the orc's eyes, they'll flinch, just a bit. It's not enough to really distract them, but when you get a blow in right at that little quailing, it'll do far more damage than if they steel themselves for it.

"Also, they are a short-lived, fast-breeding race. An orc who can't father children is worthless in his society. Striking at their eyes is no good -- they worship a half-blind god, after all -- but threaten to unman an orc, and he'll practically cut off his own leg rather than let your blade get near there. Heh.

"Perhaps most important, many orcs are slaughtered because they underestimate the dwarves they face -- but the reverse is also true. Orcs are a plague, but among them are powerful wizards, and fierce barbarians, and crafty assassins. Where a human or dwarf community has artists and entertainers and craftsmen, orc society is almost exclusively centered on warmaking, and every talent is used toward that end. The chaos of a battlefield in disarray is an orc's true home, and he is more comfortable there than any other place. If one were to impose order on the battlefield, the orc would be out of place, but that is not always possible.

"It is pride and laziness that have led us to this peril -- starting with Kray's overconfidence and Little John's poor discipline, and most recently with Drusilla's inability to control how much she drinks. In between, we've had arguments for no reason but arrogance, and fought battles poorly that should have gone well, because we assumed we faced `just a hobgoblin,' for instance. I worry that if we do not accept the humility we have so painfully earned, our quest will go awry ere we see Taur'egk's stronghold."

[Ya like the little back-foreshadowing? :) ]

2004-03-10T04:40:00.000-05:00

"Excellent! You've got quite a clever mind in that head of yours. But here's a bit of advice, not as a teacher of wildcraft, but just an observer of...well, I would call it `dwarfness', but you probably call it `human nature'. In my experience, the cleverest people run the risk of being too clever -- their intelligence can lead them faster than their wisdom, if you see what I'm saying. I know several very smart dwarves who come up with ideas about what they can do, and act on them without considering what they should do, if you see what I mean. You didn't mean any of the dwarves I have in mind in Argunn Lode -- thanks mostly to Kinvol's careful politicking. I'm not the most popular dwarf there, as you may have picked up on, and I doubt the dwarves I'm thinking of would have taken a liking to anyone else in our party either -- well, maybe Alonzo.

"Anyway, back to business. While I suspect that the gods do not particularly favor the orcs, there isn't much we could do with that information anyway. On the other hand, it is assuredly true that the more civilized races have better things to do than clean out the darkest shadows and the most miserable caves of every last orc. I would take issue with the notion that the dwarves are not mighty enough to destroy the orcs, but in any case we do not try to. If they're not bothering us, we will brew beer and sculpt statues and raise families, until they start to bother us again.

"Your third point is well taken, but is an unfortunate effect of our natures, more than that of the orcs. So let us dispense with your first and third points as valid but not in my field. The second and fourth points are closely linked: we do not hunt down the orcs in every thorny fen and slimy cave, partly because those areas are so uninhabitable and undesirable, and that is exactly where orcs thrive and fester.

"And your fifth point, ties in with these two as well -- orcs beget orcs at such speed that even if you overlooked only a score of orcs in some swamp warren, the next season there would be two score, and next year a cave complex would be crawling with them, with a few warrens spreading further afield. I have seen some human towns, and there are humans in Argunn Lode, and I think I can say that you don't have children at anywhere near the rate orcs do. From what I have seen, it seems that orcs always have a litter, rather than a single child -- surely some of those die in infancy, but four or five grow to adulthood. That's just speculation -- maybe they have young so quickly that it only seems like they were all born at once. We should ask Grell -- if he grew up among them, he would know.

"So, we beat them back to a few crevices and holes, and there they swiftly repopulate, and come to attack us again. What does this tell us about their strengths and weaknesses?"

2004-03-01T23:29:00.000-05:00

Linnam stares off into the distance, and drums his fingers on his saddle, silent for several moments. (We're still riding, I believe.) "I do not know the history of the dwarvish wars 'gainst orcs as well as I might, no doubt. But I do know much of them. The history of wars, battles, and diplomacy is a necessary part of my work; if I am to understand the maneuverings among nations, I must know the histories of their alliances and conflicts. And dwarvish armies-- and elvish ones too-- are as important to those histories as mannish ones. There have even been a few halfling realms, for a little while; and the merfolk and tritons are part of the politics of naval powers and sea kingdoms.

"But the orcs and their kin... hmmm. I think I can see some parts of the answer. [counting off fingers] There is theology, politics, geography, biology.

"First: It might be that the orcs and goblins and such as protected by gods who can simply stop them being hunted to extermination; and that the gods of our peoples intervene to allow us to defend ourselves, but are not willing to aid us on any final offensive. Pelor and Moradin are mightier than One-Eye and the Herald of Hell, no doubt; but perhaps they simply do not wish to bring about an ultimate battle. I do not know whether this is so. Politics of the gods are above my head; I simply mention the possibility.

"Second: It might be that the free peoples have never really, thoroughly tried to exterminate the vermin. Even among elves and dwarves, and even moreso among men, 'tis easier to keep soldiers in the field for a defensive war than for an offensive one. Perhaps the free peoples would have the raw power to scour the dark places clean; but they do not have the will to fight longer and further from home than is necessary to beat the vermin back a bit. Mayhap the elves and dwarves have fought such wars, but I cannot remember a mannish realm that has long sent armies afield for such a purpose. The cost in blood, treasure, and morale is too great to keep the enterprise up for long.

"Third: Allies are not forever. Certainly alliances between dwarves and elves have been short-lived, even against the common foes of the orc-kind. But the same is true for alliances among the realms of the same race. Say that Amn were to grow so powerful that its armies might sweep through these mountains and wipe out the orc-kind. Then it would also be so powerful that Tethyr, Cormyr, and the cities of the Heartland like Nashkel-- and maybe the dwarvish realms of the mountains, too-- would see it as a threat. They would ally against it. Amn's borders would no longer be so safe that it could afford the war with the orc-kind. If all those realms allied with Amn against the orcs, they might wipe them out. But they will not. They do not. And they are right-- because if Amn is so mighty that it can gain uncontested control of these mountains, someday, under a bad-willed Duke, it will turn on them. So the free peoples cannot stay united for long enough in a military campaign. Eventually, with the orcs weakened and beaten back, the small and medium-sized realms will perceive the bigger realm as a bigger threat than the diminished orcs, and they will turn on their ally.

"Fourth: geography. The orc-kind are protected from elves and men-- though not from dwarves!-- by living in remote and rocky country, in mountains and caves. Dwarves can match them there but men cannot, especially in the dark underground. And the dwarves by themselves are not so numerous or so mighty that they can wipe out the orc-kind. Moreover, the orcs know how to make strategic use of bigger, nastier things than themselves. I have read that they will settle within sight of a dragon's mountain. Orc-lords do not much care if a few of their subjects are eaten by a dragon every week, and the dragon serves to scare off others who might threaten the orcs more seriously.

"Finally, and I believe this is important: biology. The orc-kind are more like men and halflings than like dwarves and elves. Dwarves and elves are long-lived and slow to bear children. Men and orcs are short-lived and breed rapidly. Men and orcs swarm over the world; they field armies of thousands or tens of thousands. Elves and dwarves do not throw the lives of their soldiers away. Those lives are too precious. Men and orcs do throw the lives of their soldiers away-- and enough soldiers can ovewhelm the strongest citadel, eventually. Moreover: when dwarves and orcs fight a war, even if orcs suffer ten times the losses of the dwarves, the orcs will repopulate within a century, maybe much less. The dwarves may never return to their old population; at best, it will take many centuries, because dwarven generations last so much longer. And so elves and dwarves are gradually squeezed between increasing populations of men and orcs-- and the men do not have the will that elves and dwarves do to fight orcs with their last breath and drop of blood. Indeed, many men have allied with orcs when it was in their interest to do so, as elves and dwarves almost never do.

"There. I do not think it is the whole answer. But I do think it is a part."

2004-03-01T20:48:00.000-05:00

Woodland Stride...think about chasing people through scrub! Don't you really just want to be able to chase people through scrub!? That comes up ALL the time! (Hey, it did in the last battle!)

2004-03-01T20:46:00.000-05:00

"Exactly! Exactly so! I would not be able to trace the patterns and disruptions of the city as you do, but the principle is just the same, I think. After all, people are part of the world around them, though we seek to bend our surroundings to our will. Certainly the politics of Argunn Lode are not so different from the struggles of the wild, though they may pretend to something higher. Now I am curious to see the big city, and hear your observations on its rhythms!

"But I forget -- it will require much time and much luck for us to come to that. For now, I am supposed to be teaching you what I know about these wilds of my home -- `the deep caverns of coldstone and and mountains in the sky,' as it's been called. So consider this: when one wolf-pack wanders into another's territory, there is usually considerable fuss, and posturing, and growling and howling. But most of the time, little actual violence. One pack decides it is the weaker, and moves on. But sometimes, when the winter has been hard, and neither pack is clearly stronger, neither is willing to leave. And then it comes to blood, and the luck and fate of battle decide which is weaker, which stronger.

"This is not so different with people: kingdom has fought against kingdom, whether dwarf, or human, or something else again. But like the wolves, there is more often posturing, and rattling of swords, and maybe skirmishes here and there, and then the two groups have a sense of each other's measure, and go back to a more peaceful life.

"But what of the orcs? I tell you this, because your history may not say: dwarves have fought orcs for centuries upon centuries, and I have heard it is the same with elves, and with humans: all of us have been at war with the orcs for as long as there have been scribes to record it. First, why do you suppose this is, and second, with all the magic of the elves, and the puissance of the dwarves, and the adaptability of the humans, why haven't the orcs been destroyed?

"These may well be unanswerable questions, though I'm interested to hear your thoughts."

2004-03-01T18:07:00.000-05:00

Who knew dwarven rangers were so zen?

----------
"All that you say rings true. I must admit that I have been made all too aware, these past days, of how tiny a part of the world we are. When I try to imagine finding our quarry in all the vastness of these mountains [this is before we had a map-- JTL] my mind staggers.

"But... hmm. There is a difference between believing something and knowing it, down in your bones. I believe you. But to know it, I think I shall have to compare the world outside a city to a city itself. Cities are nature turned inside-out-- vast and complex, with an underlying life to them, patterns of change and of sameness. As the peoples form little of the life of nature, so does nature form little of the life of a city. Yes, the city depends on the natural world around it; but inside the walls the rules of predator and prey, the rules of catastrophe and harmony, are as the peoples have made them, not as nature did.

"And to find a quarry in the city, one must know those rules and those patterns. 'Ripples' are just how I think of it, in that context. A noble family throws an unexpectedly lavish party, or for some reason the fishmongers cease to sell their wares, or people are leaving the market district at the time of day they should be going to it, or the street-thieves suddenly go quiet. Any of those might be the outermost ripple, where the stone in the pond is that some foreign merchant is really a spy trying to subvert the Duke by bribing his guards, or one of the darker god's churches has secretly gained some dangerous magickal treasure, or that a secret society has infiltrated the iron merchants' guild. One gets a feeling for the life of a city when all's well; what moves and what stays still, who speaks and who stays silent, who buys and who sells. When something changes, you have the outermost effect-- you look for the cause before it, and then the cause before it, and the cause before it.

"I know, 'tis not exactly the same as what you see in nature. But it helps me to understand your lesson, I think; it will help me to remember it. Tracking an orc across mountains is no simple matter of looking for the orcs' footprint, any more than ferretting out a traitorous bodyguard is a simple matter of looking for the blood on his blade. When one thing changes, others do, too-- and often the others are easier to see or feel or hear or notice. You notice the disuption, and look for the origin, though you are too far away from the pond's center to see where the stone hits the water."

2004-03-01T18:03:00.000-05:00

"Consider, Linnam, that fowl over there. He (that one's a cock, as you can tell by the large tail and colorful neck) has a place and a purpose. He has only a few goals in life: to eat when hungry, to sleep when tired, second to survive, and first, to couple and have children. What does he eat? Bugs, mostly, for which I thank him, because if he didn't, they'd be crawling all over us. What eats him? Us, when we have a mind and for which I thank him again, and foxes, and wolves. So just seeing this fine fellow, we also know a pack of wolves isn't likely to be nearby, or else they'd have gotten him by now -- wolves would never pass up such a fine meal.

"He is a part of nature, and his very presence tells us about the flow of nature around us. Consider, now, the orc: where does he fit in? What are his goals in life?

2004-03-01T13:14:00.000-05:00

Ahhh....I will strive to learn from your wise words. :) Like you say, it sounds like either way would be good.

Why is Woodland Stride super useful? I read what it does, and it just doesn't seem like it would come up that much.

I think I'd want to keep Spade, but transformed into a dire badger. I might have to rename him Shovel then. :)

2004-03-01T01:10:00.000-05:00

Both would seem to make sense for Barik. He wouldn't be the first multi-class Fighter/Ranger among the Stone Brothers by any stretch. The two back-to-back feats at 1st and 2nd level are very useful, no doubt.

On the other hand, Woodland Stride is super useful, as is Swift Traker. The biggest give up is probably the 2nd level spell at 8th level...

-- Barkskin would give you +3 to AC for 80 minutes (offsets the feat loss)
-- Spike Growth is a very effective area spell
-- CLW is always a favorite
-- Bear's Endurance would give you +16 hit points for 8 minutes and +2 to Fort Saves

You also give up the ability to take an "improved" animal companion -- imagine replacing Spade with a 6' long, 500 pound raging dire beaver (shit, you could ride something that big!) Now that's an effective combat companion...

Not that I'm dissing Spade or anything...

Longer term, you set yourself back from Improved Combat Mastery, and the 3rd favored enemy. That's offset by being 2 levels closer to 4th level Fighter, which opens up the door to another feat including Weapon Specialization (always a favorite especially when stacked up with Improved Crit...).

In the end...either way you can't go wrong.

2004-02-29T15:55:00.000-05:00

Out of the in-game conversation, I wanted to express here my plans for Barik's future. I've been thinking that this party doesn't really have much resilience in our front line (Barik and Alonzo have demonstrated they don't quite have either high enough AC, or high enough hit points, to really hold the line, and Grell shouldn't really be up front all the time anyway.) Well, we can hardly blame the DM for that (this isn't griping, Scott, I swear!)

So the next couple of levels, I plan to give to Barik as fighter levels. That sacrifices primarily skill points, and secondarily some reflex save and some movement/tracking enhancements, and (at 8th level) a 2nd level spell. But in return, Barik gets more hp (probably), and a feat each level. Those feats can be defensive (Dodge, then Two-Weapon Defense, so essentially +2 to AC) or offensive (Point Blank Shot and Quick Draw, say, or Great Cleave and Improved Critical, etc.) or a mix.

Characterwise, it seems like it would fit -- Barik's just been killed, and he might be more focused on surviving in combat than in climbing, tracking, etc.

This willy-nilly multiclassing is new to me, but I think I've figured this much out. Let me know what you think, and any feat suggestions you might have.

2004-02-29T14:35:00.000-05:00

"Hm. Well, I must say, your head is more often than not in the right place, and I feel we'll need more than our share of clear thinking on this perilous mission. And I think you might find your city-born talents quite useful out here, if you were a bit more comfortable with the great wilderness. And who knows, it may be I won't be around to lead the survivors back home, and someone else will have to guide them.

"Very well. I will show you a little, if I can, of this land and how to make your way in it. The Brothers of the Stone Dragon are known for our ability to track orcs for miles across hard ground, and then take them apart like a butcher might joint a rabbit, or perhaps a better analogy would be like a gemcutter cleaves a crystal. That is what we are known for, but such abilities come from a source that few expect. Other dwarves have fought orcs as much or more as us, and yet understand them less. Why?

"The Stone Brothers approach the problem from a broader perspective, and with a broader philosophy. To track orcs, one learns to track any creature. To learn an orc's strengths and weaknesses, one doesn't look at one orc, or a hundred orcs, but at the grand scope of where and how the orcs live, the creatures that surround them and affect them, and their weaknesses become apparent. In short, we learn about nature first, and any particular creature or task is just a piece of that broad tapestry.

"I promise you, I will teach you things much more specific, and concrete, but it begins with this big picture. And the awareness that in this vastness, you yourself, even all of dwarvenkind and humankind, are really a rather small part. As the miners often say, "You cannot move the slab, and you should not try. But you can know where the slab will go. Learn to know what the rock will do before it does it, and get out of the way." These mountains, these forests, they have come before us and will leave after us. We dwarves and the orcs try to own it and control it, and pretend it is ours, which is foolish. But the Brothers of the Stone Dragon watch the mountains, the rivers, the animals, understand their comings and goings -- and then the traces of orcs appear like ripples in a pond, revealing the thrown pebble by their disruption."

(If we happened to be passing a pond or puddle or something, Barik demonstrates what he means. Alternatively, the same point can be made by tossing a stick at a bush with a grouse under it, or a tree full of birds.)

2004-02-29T10:23:00.000-05:00

Heh.

------------

Dialing up the wayback machine (since Linnam doesn't have much to do right now anyways), Bob and I are going to roleplay out at greater length a scene that went quickly before. Original post, on the road between the hobgoblin battle and Argunn Lode:

At some point when Barik is checking for tracks etc:
"Good sir, I wonder whether you would share some of your expertise with me. I am feeling an appetite to understand the outdoors better than I do, having spent most of my life in the alleyways and rooftops of cities. What is it you look for? How do you search for a track?"

and later: "Am I right in guessing that you have spent much time fighting orcs in particular? Do you have any advice on fighting them? Where is best to strike, or to shoot? By now I am feeling fairly familiar with the beasts, and have the sense that if I could learn just a bit more about them, I could increase my effectiveness against them."

Splice in, after the exchange about my climbing skills and magic slippers, and Barik's quick lesson in tracking:

"If you would, Master Barik, please, teach me something more specific, more concrete. I would learn from you, if you would have me as a student."

2004-02-29T06:14:00.000-05:00

The next few posts are (pending agreement from the other parties) going to be roleplaying a previous conversation in the D&D blog, between Linnam (Jacob Levy) and Barik (Bob Wieman, aka me). This way, the conversation can be a real conversation, but it doesn't appear on the main blog until it's been sorted out, at which point everyone can read it in one block, rather than reading something like:

Drusilla: I hack the kobold next to me in two!

Barik: And now Linnam, consider the orc. Now, the orc doesn't really think about it, but his whole religion is obsessed with his eyes. He worships a one-eyed orc god every day, and that image is so ingrained in him that if you poke out one of his eyes, he feels this rush of energy, as he realizes he is now the image of his god. Instead of making him less powerful, you've accidentally given him delusions of grandeur. Therefore, the best path is to go for his legs, or arms, and avoid the face altogether.

Barik: Oh, and I throw an axe into the kobold leader.

Linnam: Ah, I see what you are saying, Barik. So not only do you seek to cripple the enemy, but to cripple him in the way that he considers most crippling.

Grell: Linnam, quit jabbering and get the hell over here and flank this bugbear!

2003-11-16T15:06:00.000-05:00

This blog has been resuscitated (yay!). Firstly so I can put up some mathematics! (boo!) I'll try to keep it light and interesting.

How does this relate to fantasy and interesting stuff like that? The answer can be summarized in two letters and a symbol: D&D. Long story short (though it will be made longer later), I think the rules regarding range increments in 3.5 edition D&D are in places wrong and in places oversimplified.

Side note: I _think_ the rules for ranged weapons in 3.5 are the same as for 3rd edition. Please let me know if I'm wrong, and what the differences are. Also, can some web monkey tell me why my tables have so much white space above them? (See below)

Maximum Ranges

Ranged weapons in 3.5e are each given a "range increment". For example:

Weapon	Range Increment
longbow	100 ft.
composite longbow	110 ft.
dagger	10 ft.
throwing axe	10 ft.
light hammer	20 ft.
javelin	30 ft.
hand crossbow	30 ft.

The range increment serves two purposes: first, for every multiple of the range increment that a target is away from a shooter, the shooter's chance of hitting is reduced by 10% (2 out of 20). (This is a slight oversimplification.) The other is that the maximum range of a thrown weapon (such as a dagger, axe, hammer, or javelin) is five times the range increment, while the maximum range of a projectile weapon (such as a bow or crossbow) is ten times the range increment. (Note that the penalties for such a shot are -50% and -100% (10 and 20 out of 20) respectively.)

Due to various elements of the rules encouraging fantastic and exciting outcomes (which are, after all, part of what the game is about), the maximum range limitations are necessary. Reducing the chances of a shot from a high-level character with magic arrows by 20 doesn't necessarily mean the shot will miss, but at the same time just being a crackerjack shot shouldn't make you able to shoot arrows a mile. I may post later about issues around constructing games (and stories in general) that manage this balance between fantastic and ridiculous.

Consider the maximum range for a longbow: 10x(100')=1,000'. This is actually a fine approximation for the maximum distance a longbow can be shot: the (unofficial) world record for distance with an English-style longbow is 306.33m, approximately 1005'. (This is in the Unlimited class; the record for a 50 lb. draw bow is, obviously, less.) The record for a recurve bow (a modern descendant of the recurve bow, or what D&D calls the composite longbow) is 485.27m, approximately 1592'. Considering the materials used (and game balance/simplification issues), the maximum range of 1100' is perhaps reasonable.

As a side note, I point out that the compound bow was invented in the 1960's (see this link instead if you're in England). Unless your D&D milieu has a motley of technology, compound bows (and their benefits in range) don't enter into a D&D campaign.

The problem arises when one considers the maximum range for thrown weapons. By comparison with bows, one would assume that the maximum range should be the physical limit: how far it is possible to throw a dagger or hammer or whatever. This indicates it's impossible to throw a dagger more than 50'. This strikes me as an unreasonably low limit. Not having a dagger or the desire to throw it as far as I can, I resorted to other measures.

Irregular weapons, such as flasks of oil, have a range increment of 10', as do daggers. I got a 500 ml bottle of water (so it weighs about a pound, which is what the 3.5e PH says a flask of oil weighs) and easily threw it 15 paces without serious effort. But clearly my ad hoc experiment is not enough to get an idea for the range of a thrown weapon. So, like the case of the bow, lets consider some world records for some thrown objects:

Event	Record Distance
Shotput	75'10-1/4"
Javelin	323'1"(same link as above)
Hammer	284'7"("")

A shotput is a throw with one hand of a 16 lb. ball. The javelin is a spear (or giant metal toothpick) over 2m long and a little more than 1.75 lbs. The hammer is a 16 lb. ball at the end of line, thrown with two hands. These records and values are for men's events; the women's are different.

From the shotput alone, the idea of 50' for a physical limit on throwing just about any weapon smaller than a battering ram is unrealistic. Various websites about axe throwing vaguely suggest (but don't state) that throwing 50' is possible, and that a much more significant concern is choosing a range so that the axe rotates some whole number of times (actually, they say a whole number and a half, which I'd like someone to explain to me.)

As a simple initial fix, without adding complexity to the game, I would suggest that maximum ranges for all ranged weapons should be 10 times their range increments. Given the current range increments, this would allow for more logical maximum ranges for thrown weapons, and actually makes the rules simpler rather than more complicated.

People can argue at great length about whether the little dart-shooting hand crossbows, as they are usually depicted, should have as long a range as they do, or whether a throwing axe should have the same increment or better than a light hammer, but this seems to me to be more analysis and complication than it is probably worth for the time being.

2003-11-14T17:55:00.000-05:00

Moving back to blogspot (I'd move it to Bristol but I can't get it to authenticate for some reason.)

2002-11-21T20:17:00.000-05:00

Just trying to move the blog off of the blogspot website. This _should_ show up at my NCSU web page. If I can make blogger go there.

2002-04-18T02:04:00.000-04:00

I just realized that I've been spelling Tolkien wrong all this time. I am mortified. I will correct it wherever I can. Please use the address "trollkien.blogspot.com" instead of "trollkein.blogspot.com". Unless it breaks. So far, it seems to be working.

2002-04-18T02:02:00.000-04:00

Incidentally, I started that little last post because I've finished with the Two Towers, which is much better than I originally thought. Unrelated to the betterness, I'm really struck by how hopeless the tone is. Not the "up against impossible odds" stuff as much as a "not only is the mission hopeless, even if you succeed, we'll still lose" mentality. And yet it's interesting to read. Very weird.

2002-04-16T16:48:00.000-04:00

I've actually got an email about this blog -- you have no idea the thrill. So here's what Jacob had to say:

In re D&D-LOTR: The inclusion of halflings & orcs makes it hard to see much else going on in D&D-- and wasn't there some IP issue over that with the Tolkien estate at some point? But it's nice how eclectic D&D rapidly became in its source material. In LOTR wights & wraiths are the only undead; the undead in D&D are a major category and include nasties from lots of mythoi (mythoses?)-- banshees, vampires, and so on. Bilbo's burglary hardly suffices to create a whole character class of thief or rogue. D&D grabs wholesale from Greek mythology, which Tolkien had no apparent interest in. Ditto for the Arthurian stuff that Tolkien seemed to view as a pernicious French import. (There are no paladins in Tolkien.) Even critters that are major parts of the celtic and/or germanic/norse myths that Tolkien loved, like giants, are missing from Middle Earth (though in the Hobbit Gandalf refers to giants, none is ever seen or heard of, and it's probably just one of those offhand kid's story comments that never got edited out of the Hobbit to make it consistent with the rest.)

And, of course, Tolkien woefully neglects that crucial D&D monster, the giant rat.

Reread the Hobbit in December, and was struck by something. If Orcrist and Glamdring have been lost for so long, if even Gandalf didn't know of them until they were named by Elrond, how the hell did a bunch of Misty Mountain goblins identify them the very instant they saw them?
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Good points, all. Here's my reply. (Maybe if there are more emails, I'll adopt the ">" quote style and go point by point.) There was a HUGE copyright/trademark fight between TSR and the Tolkein estate for a while. I don't know much of the details, but the scuttlebutt is that "hobbit" worked out to be trademarked, which is why they're just called "halfllings" in D&D. Also, both sides claimed more than is reasonable, and TSR was trying to trademark "elf" at some point. If I get some more of the story from a more reliable source than an overheard conversation in the comic book store, I'll put it up here.

Curiously, TSR (now owned by Hasbro, btw) now has an "Open Game License" for the "d20 system", so the mechanics of D&D, which were once furiously protected, are now kinda like Open Source Software. But enough about that, until I get my "Intellectual Property" website going.

Undoubtedly, the full-blown D&D has a breadth that goes way beyond the critters and story of the Lord of the Rings. However, as the MM, FF, and MM2 make clear, putting more critters in the game system just isn't that hard. The core bits of D&D, the character races and classes, the fundamental rules and structure, are strongly LOTR-based. With some exceptions. The treatment of magic and spells, for example, is a huge part of the game system, and is completely absent from LOTR, where there really isn't all that much magic, and the dynamics of what there is are totally unknown.

Incidentally, in my copy of the Hobbit, there are stone giants. They are described briefly as one of the hazards during the storm that drives the dwarves, Bilbo, and Gandalf in the cave where the Goblins originally capture them.

Ah, Giant Rats. Every door I open, it seems there's 3 more giant rats. Sometimes, I'm surprised just by the intensity of the deja vu.

It does bring up a bit of a weakness in D&D, I think. There aren't enough low-level monsters. Convincing players to start at level one and grow their characters is hard enough, without the endless stream of goblins, orcs, giant centipedes, and those fun fun giant rats. Check it out some time: 1HD monsters and below are few and far between in the list of monsters, and all the cool, exotic monsters are just too tough to face until at least 4th level. And what's really the difference between kobolds, goblins, orcs, gnolls, and troglodytes, anyway? They pretty much all come off as devolved humans, basically.

As for the swords: Gandalf not knowing about them looks like an indication that J.R.R didn't have the whole thing thought out when he was writing the Hobbit. In the later books, Gandalf is downright Aslan-powerful, but he's much less all-knowing in the Hobbit. For him not to be able to read the runes on the swords that give their names suggest they are not one of the two alphabets Tolkien describes, both of which Gandalf can read about 77 years later in the Fellowship of the Ring. Maybe he learned to read in those 77 years, but if so, you have to wonder what he did for the over 1800 years he lived before the events of the Hobbit, when he should have been in school.

Elrond, incidentally, appears at least 4400 years before Gandalf does, so it's not so surprising he would know stuff Gandalf wouldn't. Elrond's great-grandfather was King of Gondolin, where the swords come from. Otherwise, Gondolin is not mentioned very much, and so we can't tell how recent the swords might be.

Goblins are way smarter in Tolkien, particularly the Hobbit, than their image in D&D. I don't know if their memories are long enough to remember swords that are thousands of years old, though. Here's the evidence of their advancement and possible longevity: in the Hobbit, they are described as having "cities, colonies, and strongholds" (Hobbit, Ch. 17, p.266 of my edition) The orcs of the North and the Misty Mountains are described as older tribes than other orcs. Also, Bolg, king of the Northern Orcs, was older than 142 when he was slain at the Battle of Five Armies. Orcs were supposedly created as evil imitations of elves, so conceivably they could be immortal, though I doubt it.

2002-03-01T15:12:00.000-05:00

First blog.

This is my first foray into the wonderful world of weblogging. Here's an "up to speed" description of what I've been doing or thinking about in the field:

I've just finished reading J.R.R.'s Fellowship of the Ring, and am about to get started on the Two Towers. The more I read, the more the idea of Dungeons & Dragons seems to come from the Lord of the Rings. The pace, the diverse groups of nonhuman characters, the fighting and days of traveling around. And the obsession with geography and maps. A notable feature of D&D that didn't stem from LOTR is the cleric. (Which is strongly based, IMHO, on the Archbishop Turpin from the Song of Roland. I hope I got that reference right, since I don't have Roland here with me.)

I've also been playing the Fellowship of the Rings TCG from Decipher. It's been a lot of fun, but we've noticed some bad clumping of cards in the booster packs. Hopefully this will help keep me from buying more than I should.

All this LOTR stuff has got me jonesin' for some D&D again. I'm working on a clever map-drawing program that will show the players what they can see of a dungeon. (Hopefully, it'll be expandable to show outdoor environments and stuff too.) The idea is to make map making much less time-consuming and move the game along.

That's the summary for now. More news to follow.