Rising Again

All right, I'm back. 

Mostly. It is Easter vacation, after all, so my kids are home this week (Catholic schools in the USA do Spring break after Easter/Holy Week, as opposed to during like some countries), which means I'm on entertainment duty. Still, it's raining at the moment, so they're allowed to play on my old XBox.

Even without the blogging, it's been a pretty busy few weeks. Gaming-wise, I'll go ahead and start with this: we didn't play any 5E. I did enough reading that I could probably run the system (though perhaps not super effectively), and I offered to run it for my kids. Both (especially my son) vehemently balked at the idea. Diego has a character or two made, in case his buddy ever gets around to actually running the game (he hasn't yet), but despite being willing to play (to be a good friend or whatever) he has zero desire to play when other options (like AD&D) are readily available (i.e. in our home). 

And I don't blame him. While delving into the 5E rules I kept a running list of notes on all the things in 5E that I find to be downright stupid. It is a very, very long list. As I ease back into blogging, I'm sure it'll provide good fodder for a post or two. A bone for all the haters (like me) out there. 

[I have not shown the list to the boy; his hate for 5E is all his own]

Instead of running 5E, I converted much of Icespire Peak to AD&D. Well..."conversion" might be a bit of a stretch. I retained the maps, and some of the barest ideas of places, and otherwise restocked places completely, creating a mini-"sand box" of adventure areas around the town of Rose Valley and its vicinity. Reasons for taking this approach are many (including 'time constraints' and 'laziness'), but in the main I am starting to find that it is VERY difficult to run a solid, living 1E world that is sufficiently accessible (and forgiving) for 1st level characters.  This will be a (future) post in and of itself, but for now it suffices to say TPKs in AD&D without your typical "Castle Greyhawk" (or whatever) megadungeon, makes a tough row to re-hoe over and over again. 

Welcome to Phandalin...er, Rose Valley.

Mm. Yeah. A long post on that subject coming.

Other stuff...

Did a lot of deep diving into the AD&D systems/procedures, especially with regard to races/classes, combat, and spells. Curated lists for ALL the spell-casting classes (except rangers and paladins). Rewrote the bard from the ground up. Fixed the height and weight tables (important for grappling) based on race, sex, and strength scores. Updated age tables. Went through the entirety of the weapons/armor list with a fine-toothed comb comparing things to their real world counterparts as well as their evolution over the development of the game (starting back in Chainmail); curated the lists in a manner that I can live with. Found the druid (strangely) to be pretty much perfectly suited to the AD&D game exactly as written. Did a cursory examination of the monk and while somewhat unsatisfied also left it mostly unchanged, other than moving it back to being a subclass of cleric (as it was originally) and making sure its combat/saves are based on that class.

Have not started rewriting the spells (yet); for now, just nailing the lists down is sufficient. Clerics have two separate lists (depending on divine orientation)...amounts to about 70 spells each. Put a lot of thought into clerics recently...especially this last week, sitting in church half-a-dozen times. That'll be its own post.

Reworked my conversion of Blood Bowl to gridiron football in a way that's less crunchy, more true-to-life, and makes better use of the original systems/procedures. Game is now very fast, very fun. Needs a second (third?) pass to work out some minor kinks; however, I believe a totally free rule supplement might be seeing publication by Yours Truly in the very near future.

[yes, I know the Seahawks traded Russell Wilson. Mm. Mixed feelings on that. However, the sudden interest/attention to Blood Bowl in the last couple weeks has largely been due to excitement surrounding the impending NFL draft]

And that's (more-or-less) all I've been doing, gaming-wise. Lot of kid stuff, of course...soccer, baseball, softball, flag football, school, church, etc. Sofia turns eight this week...eight!...and there's a party to prep. My son is being heavily recruited for the priesthood. We'll see if they can pull him away from his soccer dreams...had a road trip to Spokane in March for a tournament game in which they came back from a goal deficit to win win 6-1 (Diego, the team captain, scored twice from outside the box; he plays left wing). Double-header coming up this weekend with Sunday's game being in Olympia.

Mostly though, other than managing my family (wife is well, though stressed), I have spent most of my waking hours studying and paying attention to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. When not doing taxes, or watching the Sounders/Mariners, or playing with my kids, or whatever...that is the MAIN THING that's been on my mind. I've been following it closely, not so much on the news (though, of course, that's been fairly non-stop) but also reading the daily reports from ISW, listening to the podcasts from War on the Rocks (Michael Kofman is pretty amazing), tracking its impact on other countries abroad. It's a preoccupation...one I can do, well, nothing about. Except pray, of course. For both sides. Make no mistake: regardless of the outcome here, there will be no winners in this conflict. None. The Russians dying in Ukraine are dying for...what? The ambitions of one man? Of several? Not reason enough. 

I caught myself the other day, hoping that the Ukrainians defending their homes, their loved ones, their children would kill as many Russians as possible...that they would kill so many men that the "powers that be" in Russia would find their invasion impossible to prosecute further. And then I realized how terrible, how awful and wrong such thinking is. Soldiers go to war because they're ordered to go to war; soldiers abroad fight for their fellow soldiers, for their comrade next to them. This is not an invasion of a ravenous horde of monsters and maniacs...of goblins and orcs and ogres, fantasy creatures that worship dark demons or diabolic demigods. These are humans...humans of close proximity, humans of close relation to each other, humans who tend to follow the same religion, who worship the same God in the same fashion. Humans whose friends and loved ones in Russia miss them and pray for their safety and will mourn their injury and death as much as we all mourn the suffering of those closest to us. 

Just people...people suffering and dying. Ukraine is the victim here, the ones who need all the help and support and sympathy the world can give. But there are victims on both sides of this war...all of whom need our prayers. For all the good it will do (take that as you like).

Anyway, my main thought during yesterday's Easter Mass.

Apologies for taking this long to write...the day caught up with me today and prevented me posting this till the evening. More tomorrow, I hope. Cheers, folks.

Modular Art

So I did make it down to my favorite local game shop yesterday, where I sipped a delicious IPA in the middle of the day while paging through copies of the 5E PHB and DMG. My time was rather limited, so it's possible in my haste that I missed an image or three. However, with regard to illustrations depicting actual peril, I found the count in both books combined to be zero.

Sure, there's a picture of a dwarf comforting a fallen companion (page 256 of the 5E DMG...in the "siege equipment" section?) who one might interpret as mortally wounded or something (and the dwarf doesn't look like a cleric)...but her eyes are open and she doesn't have any visible injury. Maybe she's supposed to have a disease (the next section) but there's no indication it's a fatal one...she could just have really bad stomach cramps or fever.

And, yes, there's a picture in the 5E PHB of a character facing a medusa and seeing his arm is turning to stone, but I have a hard time interpreting what this image is supposed to represent. Partial petrifaction? Is the character succeeding at their saving throw (and thus withstanding a "full body stoning")? Or have they failed their saving throw and the magical curse is taking its sweet time creeping up from his fingers? Or is it just his arm that met the medusa's gaze? Or does medusa petrifaction work differently in 5E?  I don't know...but he looks more startled (perhaps by a "near miss") than actually "zapped" and incapacitated.

Whatever. 5E is its own animal. I see the book still has the spell regenerate; is there a 5E condition called "maimed?" I kind of want to write 5E adventures that feature limb-chopping traps and monsters. Wonder how that'd fly.

*AHEM* Which is a fine segue to my last post on this subject of art (I hope). 

I often get the urge to write adventure modules...as in, write them for publication. Part of this comes from reading other bloggers' (often negative) reviews of recently published adventures and thinking, hey, even I could write something that doesn't suck. I mean, it might be mediocre, but at least it wouldn't be a terrible travesty...and it might put a buck or two in my pocket.  But, as with all my gaming ambitions, the main thing that holds me back from my enterprise (aside from a lack of time) is the need for artwork in a published gaming product. And that, my friends, was before I started doing this research/analysis of the last few days.

Because the truth is, before this work (yes, it's "work"...I've spent hours on this thing!) I didn't see much value in adventure art other than 'well, it's kind of expected from the consumer.'  I mean, who is the art for? A cover entices a buyer, sure. But the interior of an adventure module is supposed to be For The DM's Eyes Only...are we just putting illustrations in the book to entertain the DM? I will say I even considered writing and publishing a new line of publication called "Artless Adventures," describing both their lack of illustration and my own ham-handedness in a single phrase.

Now I'm thinking differently.

I've long held that adventure modules...especially the old TSR ones I grew up with...provided a very distinct value to the game. Specifically: they provided a model for how to design adventures AND (in some cases) provided additional advice on how to run the game and handle certain aspects of it. Without adventures like B2, X1, the S-series, etc. what would my dungeons have ended up looking like? How would I have structured my adventures and campaigns? These old adventure modules provide examples and context for the instructions found in the rule books...instructions which, to be fair, are pretty "bare-bones" especially if you consider the reader to have been someone with NO experience creating fantasy adventure scenarios (as I was, once upon a time).

But more than that, I now see the importance of these early adventure modules from the standpoint of the artwork they provide. These images of giants and Drow and robots and volcanoes aren't only providing seeds for the imagination...they are helping to describe difficult concepts and illustrate aspects of game play that might be unclear. Sure, they offer excellent pictures of "peril" (see Delta's post for some great examples), but they also offer images that might be tough to conceptualize from a reading of text alone. The inverted ziggurat or suspended disk cavern of White Plume Mountain; the open-floor pit chamber of Slave Pits of the Undercity; the shadow of the vampire tomb in Shrine of Tamoachan; Lolth's spidership (and the demonweb itself) in Queen of the Demonweb Pits. The artwork does more than entertain: it helps elucidate and cement ideas so that the participants (DM and players) have a firm understanding of the play occurring at the table.

Limited by imagination, remember? Feed the imagination.

I have an extensive collection of old TSR adventure modules, but relatively few from the post-Gygax days. The few I do have are extremely hit-or-miss (and generally more "miss" than hit). The 2E Return to White Plume Mountain has some good pieces that help illustrate the certain unusual monsters that might otherwise be hard to conceptualize. But 2E's Return to the Keep on the Borderlands is extremely poor in this regard, providing almost nothing (save a good external view of the Keep) and even screwing up the illo of the minotaur lair (showing a chamber of three doors where no such place exists on the map). But the earlier 1E stuff, whether American or done in the UK, all do a good job of communicating concepts pertinent to the adventure scenario they present. Some of the UK stuff (UK1-3 and B10) is especially good at depicting tricky locations, events, and NPC characters with their art, illustrating fortresses and half-orcs and medieval towns in a way that really helps strengthen the imagination. 

There just seems...to my eye...to be a lot LESS of this in current adventure publications. And that is, I think, to be expected when so many of the adventures being published these days are being put together by poor independent shmucks (like me) scrambling to find any clipart to fill white space, rather than big companies with staff artists (like TSR, back in the day). 

Perhaps the big 5E campaign books WotC regularly publishes are better in this regard (I haven't purchased/read any of them, so I can't say), as they clearly have the resources to staff or outsource artwork of a higher quality and have actual real art direction. Then again, I do have a copy of Dragon of Icespire Peak (for 5E) and there are no images that spring to mind when I try to recollect. 

[hold on a moment...]

Okay, yeah...no. With the exception of an illo of a couple adventurers looking over a hill at Phandelvin, there's really no art portraying adventurers doing adventuring stuff in the book. There are full color illustrations of the monsters and major NPCs that will be encountered (good stuff that)...but I'm not sure DoIP expects much more than "PCs go to location/PCs kill monsters/PCs return to town." So...um. Yay? Is that a "win" for WotC's art department?

I mean, even the Dragonlance art showed PCs getting killed sometimes.

Yes, the "boobplate" is terrible. But
look! Dead adventurer!
It's like D&D or something!

The point of all this being: this stuff, this artwork (high quality or not) matters for how we conceptualize the game...and being a fantasy game, the ability to conceptualize is a key component to playing the thing. Just what that artwork illustrates serves to build our imaginations and inform our expectations of play.

Yes...we all have lots and lots of media to help give us an idea of what "fantasy adventure" means. We've seen Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and Star Wars and tons of other media: comics and cartoons and instagram extravaganzas. But those images alone don't inform what the (D&D) game is. The D&D game is its own thing. Its rules provide for a certain type of play. And while I may be snarky about what 5E does or does not do, the fact is I have no interest or concern for "5E game play." I play AD&D (and, before that, B/X). And, hey, there are other people who are still playing these old editions.  And people writing adventure modules for these old editions. And people buying and reading and running these adventure modules for old editions.

And so it matters whether or not the artwork ("a picture being worth a thousand words") helps describe the game play of these old editions. Because they're not really "old" if they're currently being played. Hell, they're not even out-of-print anymore (pick up your POD copies of AD&D core from DriveThru right now!). So the discussion is actually pertinent to games currently being played.

And THAT, I suppose, is my final takeaway from this week's "adventure" down beautifully rendered byways of art and illustration. Art is something that I need to attend to (in my own design and publication)...something helpful and important for showing players how the game is meant to unfold, not simply an expected bit of decoration. 

Man, am I glad I commissioned a lot of mutating PC illos for my Comes Chaos book!

: )

On (the Game of) Writing Adventures

A few weeks back Dave and Dan had another good episode discussing the "role" of the Dungeon Master in Dungeons & Dragons...what are the responsibilities of the DM, what are the expectations placed on the DM, and why they themselves enjoy running games. While I don't think their dialogue does much to put the topic to bed, the conversation raises some interesting "thinking points" for consideration.

One concept they reach, that I don't think unreasonable, is that while there clearly seems to be a number of responsibilities (hats worn) by a DM, many DMs (including themselves) have particular responsibilities they prefer more than others. To me, this is not unlike a player saying that the thrill of combat, or the solving of puzzles, or the interaction with NPCs is their preferred portion of exploring the imaginary environment of a campaign. Clearly, the majority of us play D&D because we enjoy what it offers, but some aspects of it offer more "juice" than others.

For me, MY particular preference is for designing and running adventures. Campaign or world building is actually a bit of a slog for me...it's a means to an end, that end being the parameters for a particular adventure. And yet, I would guess I am far away from the current norm of adventure design: I have little concern for plot or story arc or the design and writing of "interesting characters" (NPCs). I enjoy creating situations and scenarios for exploration and I do so in a formulaic fashion designed around the D&D system...based on whichever edition I happen to be using at the time. 

I outlined my basic design formula waaaay back in 2015 (about four years ago). It's the method I continue to use, more or less, and the method I am currently using to repurpose the 5E adventure Dragon of Icespire Peak. It's a system based mainly on treasure allocation compared to the expected level of player characters participating in the adventure, mixed in the proper proportions of monster-obstacle-rest that I have found fully functional for pacing in actual play.

Has anyone here ever taken a screenwriting class? For those who haven't (but who are interested in the process), I'd recommend Syd Field's Screenplay as the non-nonsense instructional work on how to write a solid film script. Films we watch may have more (or less) interesting stories than others, they may have more (or less) developed characters, they may have better (or worse) dialogue, but nearly all of them follow the exact same formula when it comes to writing them. Good, bad, or meh. There are reasons films tend to be the same length (120 minutes, or 90 for those aimed at younger audiences with shorter attention spans). The plot points, their pacing, are all based on standards established over the many decades of the film industry. 

For me, the fun and enjoyment of adventure design is found working within the formula that I choose to use (as outlined, in the main, by Tom Moldvay). The adventure in D&D is, after all, only a means to an end itself:

- It delivers the experience of D&D to the players.

- It provides the method (through reward) by which players advance, opening additional opportunities (i.e. content) for play.

Dragon of Icespire Peak, despite some interesting and creative ideas, is an extremely simplistic and (for my money) poor design hindered by the 5E's variant system of advancement...in this case, the "milestone" system of simply awarding a level of advancement upon successful quest completion.

[fun side note: I developed an alternate system of level advancement also using the term "milestones" long before 5E was published. This was back in 2010 and was inspired in part by Saga Star Wars's "destiny points" to represent a more streamlined bonus. Since my "B/X Star Wars" game (later re-named "Kloane War Knights") has yet to be published, its original format has not yet seen the light of day (other than this blog), but you can see the same application in my Five Ancient Kingdoms, copyright 2013...a year before 5E was published. Pay me, WotC!]

[yes, 4E had a "milestone" rule procedure; it was not related to the awarding of experience/levels]

ANYway...Dragon of Icespire Peak divides its various adventure scenarios (called "quests") into the following types: starting quests, follow-up quests (divided into two tiers), and the main dragon quest/fight. Characters are awarded one level for each starter quest up until 3rd level, one level for every two follow-up quests (presumably up to 6th), and then one more level for defeating the dragon. The adventure states that characters "should be 6th level" by the end of the adventure (and indeed, the box says it is designed to take characters from levels one to six), but a group of completist players are going to end up being 7th level by the letter of the milestone rules...and I'm not sure I'd buy that.

Here's the treasure yields I'm considering, using the B/X fighter level chart as a baseline (yes, AD&D fighters need more XP starting at level 5, but if you subtract the 10% experience bonus most such PCs would expect to have, it amounts to the same numbers or less):

Starter Quests: 10,000 g.p. each

Follow-Up Quests (tier 1): 10,000 g.p. each

Follow-Up Quests (tier 2): 20,000 g.p. each

Dragon (main) Quest: 80,000 g.p.

Considering that even a white dragon has treasure type H (average yield: 50,000 g.p.) this should be pretty doable. Icespire Hold has 24 encounter areas total (counting the two H22 areas as "A" and "B"), which works nicely with my formulaic approach:

8 monsters areas (4 have treasure)

4 trap/hazard areas (1 has treasure)

4 "special" areas (1 has treasure)

9 empty areas (1 has treasure)

With perhaps 1 "extra" treasure area. 

Rough treasure yields for the main quest will thus be:

40,000 g.p.

20,000 g.p. 

10,000 g.p.

5,000 g.p.

2,500 g.p.

1,250 g.p.

1,250 g.p. (or 625 g.p. x2)

These are parameters I'm happy to work with; more, I'm excited to work with them. Even using a formulaic system, I find it a cool challenge to see what I can come up with, working within self-imposed design limitations. I'm not concerned with the XP yield of monsters, as combat/killing monsters isn't a requirement of the D&D editions I run. That XP is incidental, and will (hopefully) make up the difference for treasure the party misses; I never expect PCs to find every last scrap of loot in an adventure site. As I'll be taking the same approach with every "quest" in the book, there will be more than enough potential XP (found treasure) to advance the PCs...assuming they play well enough to survive and find said treasure. 

I can understand if this seems like a "soulless" approach to adventure design, but I find it to be the opposite. In practice, I've discovered that taking care of the mechanical aspect of the award system up front provides me the freedom to run adventures to the best of my ability, managing the minutia, playing the NPC adversaries (and allies), creating the experience (through pacing and narration) in the players' minds that allows them to enjoy playing D&D. Involved story arcs and fancy plot devices are paltry in comparison.

Forgetting the Realms

I don't know jack about the Forgotten Realms.

Because I'm me, I write this with a bit of puffed up pride, as in "I'm too good for that goofy property." But the fact of the matter is, I simply missed the whole FR experience. The original boxed set detailing the Forgotten Realms was published in 1987, a year after the last new AD&D book I would purchase (the Dungeoneers Survival Guide). By that time, I wasn’t even running a game, having surrendered all DM authority to my friend, Jocelyn. I would give up the hobby entirely circa 1988, only briefly returning (a couple-four years later) to DM my brother and his buddies in a turgid, short-lived AD&D campaign. My interest in the D&D during the 90s was roughly equal to the Seahawks playoff hopes during that same period (translation for non-Seattle residents: slim-to-none).

Here’s what I know about the Forgotten Realms: it was the home campaign setting of Ed Greenwood whose “Ecology Of...” articles (as voices by Elminster the Sage) I would occasionally read in Dragon magazine Back In The Day. When I was bored. After I’d already peruses any new classes, monsters, magic items, or Marvel-Philes that might be present in the mag.

I know Elminster is a prominent figure/NPC in FR. There were some video games based on the setting (Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, etc.) that I never played. I've never read or owned an FR novel, though I understand there's quite a few of them, some of which feature a Drow ranger named Drz'zt (or whatever).

Um...that’s about it.

Of the various D&D campaign settings that were put out over the years, the ones in most familiar with are Krynn, Mystara, and Oerth ("Greyhawk")...in that order. Krynn I know because I read the first seven or eight novels (multiple times for some of them), not because I ever owned or played any of the game publications. Mystara I know from reading (and using) the Gazetteers (during my BECMI days) or from more recent research. Greyhawk was a large part of our old AD&D campaign, although we never did use more of it than the map and the names of cities/regions...I couldn’t tell you anything about the “Suel” or Iuz or the Horned Society, etc. to save my arse.

[I did read Gygax’s first two Gord novels, though. Still own them, too]

And that’s it. I picked up a used (and incomplete) copy of 2E’s Dark Suns campaign setting decades later, but I’ve never done anything with it. Oh, and does SpellJammer count as a campaign setting? Steve-O game me a copy of that back in college, though we never did use that either.

Really that is pretty much the extent of my knowledge of the “official” D&D campaign settings. I don’t know anything about Birthright or Planescape (besides the fact that tieflings originated there), or Eberron, or anything else. And I know absolutely nothing about the Forgotten Realms (besides the Greenwood thing) except for the fact that everyone loves it and it continues to be a standard setting for the current edition of D&D.

Okay, okay, not everyone loves it, but quite a few people do.

More or less how I
picture Prince Gwydion.

So when I examine D&D Essentials and see this map of the “Sword Coast,” I really have no context or sense of scale or ANYTHING as it relates to the Realms. The illo on the original box cover felt reminiscent of a scene out of a Lloyd Alexander book, but I have no idea if the setting is heavily influenced by Tolkien or Wales or, well, anything. I suppose I could look up what Wikipedia says on the subject. Here, hold on a moment...

[later]

Okay, that didn't give me much...though, wow, there have been a TON of FR-themed vid games released. I had no idea.

Dragon of Icespire Peak does provide a page briefly describing this particular section of FR ("The Sword Coast"). Regarding the Realms in general it states:

"The world of the Forgotten Realms is one of high fantasy, populated by elves, dwarves, halflings, humans, and other folk. In the Realms, knights dare the crypts of the fallen dwarf kings of Delzoun, seeking glory and treasure. Rogues prowl the dark alleyways of teeming cities such as Neverwinter and Baldur's Gate. Clerics in the service of gods wield mace and spell, questing against the terrifying powers that threaten the land. Wizards plunder the ruins of the fallen Netherese empire, delving into secrets too dark for the light of day. Bards sing of kings, queens, heroes, and tyrants who died long ago."

[in other words, it's just D&D]

"On the roads and rivers of the Realms travel minstrels and peddlers, merchants and guards, soldiers and sailors. Steel-hearted adventurers from backcountry farmsteads and sleepy villages follow tales of strange, glorious, faraway places. Good maps and clear trails can take even an inexperienced youth with dreams of glory far across the world, but these paths are never safe. Fell magic and deadly monsters are the perils one faces when traveling in the Realms. Even farms and freeholds within a day's walk of a city can fall prey to monsters, and no place is safe from the sudden wrath of a dragon."

Okay, that's mostly just an overview of the D&D game's premise. However, there are some clues in this text (besides the proper names provided) as to the make-up of the setting. I don't usually think of "steel-hearted adventurers" coming from "backcountry farmsteads and sleepy villages." But when "no place is safe" and "farms and freeholds within a day's walk of a city can fall prey to monsters" that says something about the make-up of the setting: namely that there isn't any sort of serious government or military presence and that the landscape is a frightened no man's land where death is no more than a stone's throw away.

A hellscape, really...and that's something I can work with. Those "teeming cities" are probably nothing more than huddled masses of refugees from the countryside. These fallen empires and long-dead kings, etc. (not to mention "terrifying powers that threaten the land") speak to a vanilla fantasy world that's had all the idyllic/pastoral bits squeezed out of it. This isn't the Shire...it's Mordor. There's even an active volcano less than 35 miles from the area's major city (Neverwinter). The closest large town to Mount St. Helens is probably Kelso (about 60 miles away)...and it's only the 80th large town in Washington State as ranked by population. One might think it strange that the people of Neverwinter would hang out "rebuilding" after the most recent eruption (50 years before the campaign start) "badly damaged" the city. I can only assume that other areas of the region are so dangerous and monster infested that moving wasn't a real option.

Phandalin, the "home base" for the adventure is pretty much described the same as it is in Lost Mine of Phandelver (I think GusL's comments on the village are appropriate). While there are some callbacks to the idyllic ("you see children playing on the town green") I don't think it can't be rectified by playing up the mud, squalor, and horse shit of your typical medieval village (especially a slap-dash mining town as Phandelvin is). This should be something closer to HBO's Deadwood, not Downton Abbey's little village, especially one under constant menace of orc raiders and dragons.

"I've got a f*!%ing
quest for you."

Clearly then, much of this requires the makeover treatment. The town master (and "quest giver") Harbin Wester should be much more Al Swearengen and much less the cowardly Master of Lake Town (as portrayed by Stephen Fry in the film). Wester is trying to hold his little kingdom together, and he should be manipulating the hell out of any courageous dupes (i.e. the player characters) in order to make that happen.

[actually, I suppose if you really wanted to re-skin Phandelvin as Deadwood, you'd keep Harbin as is and make Toblen Stonehill, the real "Swearengen" character. Then you could set up Linene Graywind (by way of Patience from Firefly) as a competing, slightly less underhanded town faction]

Will probably kill
you anyway.

Point is, Phandelin should be more Nulb than Hommlet. And I think there's enough textual material in the adventure to support this view. Which is important to me for getting my mind right as I try to twist this bugger into something a little more playable.

The rest of the Forgotten Realms? Meh. Not all that important at this point.

Race, Racism, Alignment, and Evil

Apologies in advance: I should probably break this down into a number of separate posts. But I'd rather just lance the whole topic in one shot rather than prolonging the suffering.

Let's start with the basics: I'm about 10 seconds away from cutting alignment out of my D&D game. Yes, this is something that some folks (like the much esteemed Alexis Smolensk) has been advocating for years...blogging about it as recently as last week. But it's not Alexis who finally broke my back on the subject (even if he did lay a lot of the initial groundwork); rather, it was G.A. Barber's recent posts on decolonization, integration, and racist tropes in D&D.

And orcs. Thinking about orcs. Really just...orcs.

We're going to bring this around to the Icespire Peak thing in a second (that's a factor), but let's start with the orc thing first. I wrote a rather long comment/response on Barber's post that was either eaten by the internet or hasn't been approved. Doesn't matter either way because it was kind of dumb. But here's the summarized thought (refined a tad):

- While I understand the tropeyness of monocultures (an "elf nation," "orc nation," etc.) is both banal and uncomfortably similar to racist stereotypes (e.g. "all African nations are the same"), it's tough to separate from this when I want non-humans to represent a small segment of the world's sentient population (in comparison to humans, who are prolific and diverse). I'm more inclined to handle these monocultures as Gygax does the Drow in module D3: have a variety of internal factions, conflicting political/religious groups, and rogue independents within the monoculture. Another example might be the dwarves of Krynn as presented in the novel War of the Twins.

- That being said, there's an additional challenge: I like my tropey evil species. I like dragons that are greedy. I like goblins that are sneaky gits. And I like orcs to be scourges on the civilized species, whether because of some genetic curse or their innate subservience to some Dark Lord (Sauron, etc.). I understand this is a callback to European views of the Mongols or Huns (did Eastern nations view Alexander in the same fashion? Maybe) and, admittedly, lazy as far as world building. But what's the alternative? Feeling bad about killing orcs and taking their stuff? When we could be building bridges with and finding empathy for another sentient, misunderstood species?

[this is still D&D we're playing, right? A certain type of escapist fantasy that allows us to expediently resolve conflict with swords and spells, unlike the real world. Superhero fantasy (where conflicts are resolved with mighty fists instead of thoughtful dialogue) is similarly lazy and escapist, but sometimes we want that, right? Or not?]

- But even saying I go partway here towards "understanding orcs" (at least understanding that they are a group of homocidal, unreasoning inhuman humanoids), we can start to say HEY there's really no such thing as "evil races" and "good races" only SELF-INTERESTED peoples. Just like real life nations. Dwarves (or elves or orcs or whoever) might appear stand-offish to outsiders, but if your interests align with theirs, they're happy to become helpful, friendly allies. On the other hand, when your interests and theirs conflict, they're similarly likely to become enemies at the gate. And unfortunately for the orcs, the ethics and values of their particular "society" (such as it is) is quite likely to be at odds with those of (most) human communities.

[side note: I think it was the 2nd or 3rd edition of Warhammer 40,000 that suggested or implied that orcs were a plant-like species: the green skin/blood being related to chlorophyll, their seeming indifference to pain or lost limbs, their driving motivation to compete and expand like a hostile plant being introduced into an unprepared ecosystem. I do kind of like this idea, but D&D already has vegepygmies]

[hmmm...are vegepygmies kind of racist?]

Moving on from Barber's post (and my comments), this idea of "self-interest" echoes back to my thoughts on the nature of capital-E EVIL in D&D (advanced or otherwise). I wrote about this waaaaay back in 2010, when I realized there really shouldn't be a separate "holy" and "unholy" version of spells, water, and symbols. To the priest of Satan (or whoever), her symbols, spells, and special ointments are all "holy," and the implements of different faiths/religions are "unholy" or "blasphemous." Our perceptions are colored by our own values and self-interests, especially as ingrained in us by our parents/family/elders/teachers/society.

That doesn't mean everyone is a SELFISH BASTARD! There are still people in the fantasy world that are taking actions that enlightened 21st century (and, in my case, Christian) folks would consider "good" or "altruistic." Self-interest doesn't preclude acts of charity and kindness, if those things are of value to the particular fantasy being in question. Orcs, however, may not have those values by definition of their "particular society." A few outliers aside (as always).

Back to the Dragon of Icespire Peak adventure: the adventure background concerns a white dragon moving into the territory and setting up shop. This sets in motion a number of events, including the forcing of orcs (the dragon's convenient prey) out of their usual territory, forcing them into conflict with the nearby human settlers. Again, I will say this isn't a terrible premise for an adventure...it is in fact, a very reasonable, realistic scenario. In a fantasy world of monsters eating and enslaving other monsters, it's only natural that such a chain of events would occur (the dragon in the adventure is youngish and was forced out of its territory by other, more powerful dragons...similar to a young lion being forced from the pride by the alpha male). The problematic part of the adventure is the execution of the scenario: kill encroaching monsters (orcs or otherwise), level up, kill dragon, yay...all for little or no reward.

Do I want to take out the orc fights? No, not necessarily. Do I want the PCs to peaceably "integrate" the orcs into their society? No. Even if they were re-skinned as "barbarous hillmen" (or something) I want to retain the cultural differences and conflict. I do not want my Dothraki walking around and enjoying the culture of King's Landing in some fantasy version of Renaissance Venice, okay? Keep that shit to the final episode...er, session of the campaign when you're done with "adventuring."

But do you see where I'm going with this line of thought? There's no need for alignments...especially monster/species designated alignment...in a campaign world based on thoughtful self-interest and reasonable motivations. THAT is why I'm finally, finally willing to take a hard look at axing alignment from my game, after years of resisting the idea. In B/X this isn't difficult: "evil" (for purposes of detect evil, protection from evil, etc.) is only limited to supernatural evil of the undead or demonic variety, with "evil" being defined as "contrary to the natural order of the world." Here are the only other considerations, as far as I can recall:

Alignment language: I don't use it anyway.
Intelligent magic weapons: even without alignment, such items have an ego and an agenda, and will attempt to control a character. I see little reason to do the "gotcha" damage from picking up a weapon of different alignment; being mind controlled by an intelligent sword is "gotcha" enough.
Alignment changing magic items: there are better, more interesting cursed items to include in a campaign world.
"Good" alignment play for adjusting XP acquisition: No.
Alignment restrictions based on class: I'd address this on a case-by-case basis.
- Assassins: originally required alignment was "neutral." Evil is as evil does: no restrictions.
- Bards: requiring "some sort of neutral" is the same as no requirements. Duh.
- Cavaliers: PHB only, please.
- Clerics and Druids: see the bit about holy symbols above. Priestly types are expected to follow the tenets of their particular faith in order to produce magical effects. Failure to do so might result in loss of abilities.
- Monks: have you not seen Iron Monkey? Look at the main villain.
- Rangers: I'm not running a Middle Earth campaign. These are outdoorsy hunter dudes, and that doesn't require a "good" alignment. Other restrictions certainly apply!
- Thieves: plenty of examples in fiction of "heart-o-gold" thieves; see Grey Mouser. Not sure why there was ever such a restriction (I think, back in the day, we house ruled this to "non lawful" instead of non-good).
- Paladins: the most problematic of the bunch, and my main impetus for years for keeping alignment (even when not playing AD&D!). I know that I still want "behavioral restrictions," but I don't want to tie them to DM fiat of what is or isn't being "true" to the lawful good alignment. Are the paladin's abilities supernatural? Yes. So then, as with other spell-casters, they are tied to their beliefs as self-imposed strictures (like a wizard's taboos against weapons). As such, I'd probably set a number of tenets/laws (similar to the cavalier's "code of conduct" in the UA) that such a character would not be able to transgress without the loss of her abilities.

All right. I think that's about all I want to say on the subject. Next post will be shorter (I think) and address the "vanilla fantasy" setting that is the Forgotten Realms.

Not all orcs are alike.

Essential Repurposing (Part 1)

AKA "Fixing Stuff For Fun And Profit"

I'll cut to the chase: I picked up a copy of the D&D Essentials Kit. Yes, I put money in WotC's pocket ($12 and change), although I do have 90 days to return the thing to Target.

The reason for this? I wanted a copy of the included adventure, Dragon of Icespire Peak. I have a bit of a "thing" for white dragons. That may not have been obvious over the years (though the last time I created an adventure with a dragon...nine years ago!...it was a white), but they're probably my second faves, after black dragons. Their Superman-like, liquid nitrogen breath is not only a cool image, and it's a bit easier to justify than a monster that breathes fire...plus, they have the best natural camouflage (IMO) of all the dragons.

I'm rooting for the dragon.

Besides, I dig on snow and ice settings (duh...see Land of Ice for examples); heck, I almost picked up a copy of Frostburn, long after I'd chucked DND3 from my life. Probably would have purchased it, if it'd had a white dragon on the cover.

Anyway, I wanted to see the type of adventure being constructed over at Wizards of the Coast and see if it was anything I might use...or modify...for my own ends. Here's what my $13 bought me:

- An "Essentials Kit Rulebook" that I have zero interest in reading. Really. I've read the 5E books, I've played a session (or two?) of 5E, and I've listened to multiple hours of 5E "actual play" podcasts. I know that the game, as it's currently being produced, is extremely irritating to my psyche and outside the sphere of "things-I-want-to-engage-with." I'd go back to AD&D RAW long before I'd sit down to a 5E game session.

[well, not quite RAW. I will never again play AD&D with character limitations based on sex/gender. Yes, we did this in my youth...even our female players, who generally ran fighter characters...but I'm done with that particular brand of machismo stereotype]

- A nice set of (eleven) dice.

- A DMs' screen that has a lovely illustration on it. If I was crafty at all, I'd find some way to cut it up into some sort of decorative doo-dad. Unfortunately, I'm not.

- Some 5E tools (cards for initiative, conditions, magic items) that I probably won't be able to use. Actually, the "sidekick cards" might work fine as a stack of random NPCs.

- A map of the Sword Coast portion of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting.

- The 64 page adventure book that was my impetus for buying the box.

Let's see, anything else? Some blank (5E) character sheets. A box for holding cards. Some codes to unlock additional on-line content (not sure if I need to be enrolled in D&D Beyond to use that). Eh. All-in-all, I suppose it's not a bad value for a "starter set"...dice alone would probably cost $5-6. What price would you put on 14 easily re-purposed "dungeon" maps; a quarter a piece? Maybe $.50 to $1, given that they include some possible ideas/inspiration in the text?

Maybe. They aren't great. If you're interested in WHY they're "not great" (or, as some might say, "terrible") I'd direct you to this recent ggnore podcast (episode 175) for the informed opinion of a group of regular 5E users who bothered to play through most of the adventure (their actual play podcasts...about 12 hours worth...comprise four or five of their earlier episodes).

But I already knew that...I mean I did research the thing before I bought it.

Here's the thing, though: I (me) am not quite ready to say the ideas here are "terrible." Many of the quests presented here (the term used to describe the dozen plus micro adventures that make up the whole of this mini-campaign) aren't anything worse than what I'd come up with for a single session or two at the table. Maybe that says more about me (and my lack of creativity), but not every adventure need be a giant, six level dungeon filled with world-destroying threats nor does every event occurring in a campaign require some sort of clever inter-woven story/plot construction. Sometimes a simple kernel of an encounter can yield hours of entertainment.

The real problem, in my opinion, is more one of execution...that is to say, I'm not the fan of how these quests/adventures are supposed to unfold. And that is mainly a 5E issue rather than a lack of imagination on the part of the author. The Essentials Kit wants to provide an introductory adventure (rid this region of its dragon problem), that's a bit too steep in challenge for a a band of newbie adventurers. So it provides a bunch of "warm-up" adventures that the player characters will need to grind in order to achieve the requisite power level to face the ultimate encounter (the eponymous dragon).

Grind is the operative word here...there is little reward offered in any of the adventures, save for the promised leveling that comes with the completion of the "quests." Players need to seek out and check off every notice on the town's job board in order to achieve the necessary milestones (i.e. "auto-level ups") that will eventually (around 6th level) allow them to face down the dragon. Since treasure means little to the 5E character (most of their best upgrades come from levels not equipment...and gold doesn't earn XP) there's nothing to really motivate characters except what "meta" story you want to give your party.

Hell, even the dragon has bupkis in the way of treasure (whoops! SPOILER). One would imagine that the main incentive for fighting a dragon would be, you know, claiming its hoard or getting showered with gold by a grateful community. Not here! The dragon of Icespire Peak is broke as a joke...it lairs on the roof of a ruined castle, eating the occasional mountain orc that it manages to catch, and has exactly zero as far as a hoard. The grateful villagers? Well, the townmaster "might plan a feast in the heroes honor" (emphasis added by yours truly).

So there's very little reason I can think of for a group of adventurers to hang around an area being threatened by a dragon, let alone take the time to grind a bunch of step-and-fetch/kill adventures for little reward beside the leveling. It reminds me quite a bit of a video game script...but if I wanted to play a video game I'd be doing that. Video games do video games better than tabletop RPGs do.

And just in case anyone's wondering, this isn't a rant...it's just weary observation.

Back to the point: Dragon of Icespire Peak isn't a great adventure, but that's mainly due to 5E not being a great system. Oh, I know folks love 5E and all that (or are resigned to playing it or whatever) but for my money (and I did spend actual money on this thing) you really start to see the warts on the thing when you look at this kind of product. The ggnore boyz say it's the best WotC adventure since Phandelver...but based on some reviews I've read, that may be damning with faint praise.

Still, I do love white dragons. I love them as a feature monster, not just some knightly mount or frost giant pet. I think they do make a good antagonist for a party of low level adventurers: a sizable (though not insurmountable) risk to balance against a presumably rich reward. That IS what Dungeons & Dragons is supposed to be about after all, right? You defeat the dragon, you divvy up the spoils.

What I'd like to do...now...is rewrite the adventure. Make it a little more "old school friendly;" something with a B/X (or even AD&D) sensibility. File off the serial numbers, prune the edges, maybe slap an OGL on it and sell the PDF for a couple bucks. Try my best to make the thing a bit more useable as a campaign jumpstart.

Would anyone have any objections to me giving it a go?

My favorite white dragon pic.